Temptations Page 3

  “I have wronged you, Elizabeth,” he said. “Please allow me to apologize. I will not embarrass you by repeating my profession of love or my offer of marriage—though neither has changed—but I must make myself understood. In wronging you, I have wronged myself profoundly. In hurting you, I have hurt myself. I see that, and I am sorry. And I—” He stopped himself, having just promised not to tell her again that he loved her, and smiled sadly. “I care for you. I hope you see that.”

  She inclined her head. “I think perhaps I do,” she said softly.

  The last barrier came down.

  Her voice grew soft and tender, laden with empathy, and a fantasy filled Mr. Darcy’s head—one that had plagued him before. In it, he was a married man, and Elizabeth was the Lady of Pemberley. Her lively spirit and free laughter, her witty conversation and heartfelt goodness filled the halls of his home. It broke his heart to have that vision just now, when he had finally built up the courage and resolve to propose, and had been so soundly rejected.

  It also led to another fantasy, however—the darker side of the first. The night fantasy. The fantasy where Elizabeth, his wife, joined him in his bed, and sated his every desire. The fantasy where her alabaster skin, her soft, full lips, her youthful face, her womanly body, were his to have and to hold, his to taste and to teach, his to own and to obey.

  He had already given in to his first temptation and professed his love. Now he faced the second temptation.

  His lust.

  4

  ___

  Elizabeth’s head spun.

  She had never expected to receive Mr. Darcy alone and to hear these things from him. Then, when he did tell her of his love and his wish to marry her, he had done it so arrogantly as to be entirely off-putting. But beyond that, she felt quite sure that he had somehow turned the situation to his advantage and made her take pity on him. As if he were some kind of victim. She nearly laughed at the thought.

  His eyes.

  They were dark, and as full of mystery as ever, but there was something new there now. Something familiar. An aching, the cry of one soul to another, a fiercely burning desire to reach out and touch, to know the other, to see the other for themselves.

  To love.

  He rose to his feet. Her pulse quickened. From where she sat, her eyes naturally took in his full frame—his broad chest, the top portion just slightly bare where he had clearly struggled with his collar under the hot summer sun—his imposing stature, the strength of him, the confidence of his body. Suddenly aware that she was openly gazing at his form, she snapped her eyes back to his, only to catch him appreciating her own body in turn. When their eyes met again, she found they were both blushing. He smiled gently.

  “Elizabeth,” he said softly. “I have lied to you.”

  “How so?” she said, as if entranced.

  “Only a moment ago I said I would not repeat my profession of love. Only now I find it nearly impossible not to do so.”

  “Mr. Darcy,” she said, feeling her heart fly to her throat, “I, too, fear I may have deceived you.” She stood, holding the desk to steady herself.

  “Oh?” He took a step toward her, inviting himself into her sphere of personal space, but stopping short of contact. In answer she too stepped forward.

  “Yes,” she murmured. “I told you I had never desired your good opinion, only… I find that, perhaps, now I do.”

  He inhaled, a long, slow breath, and she wondered if he meant to smell her. She was enveloped in his scent now, and she found it heady and strong, virile but refined, as attractive as everything else about him. With a start she had a shocking realization. This man, this wealthy, upstanding, gentleman, could be hers. If she wanted him, she could have him. She could marry him tomorrow. She could have him right now, right here on the floor of the drawing room, if she wanted.

  If she wanted.

  “Have you ever wanted anything,” she said, “but not been sure if you should?”

  He smiled, eyes half-lidded. She was quite sure he was gazing at her lips now. She wet them, just in case. “Have you been listening to nothing I have said?” His voice held a note of playfulness, as if he meant to make a joke of his failed proposal.

  She laughed, a small, breathy sound, just enough to let out some of the tension building in her body. He laughed too, his eyes locked on hers. It felt good.

  It felt exquisite.

  When he spoke again it was nearly a whisper. “I have wanted you for some time now, Miss Bennet.”

  Breathe, she reminded herself. Keep breathing. “Have you?”

  He nodded. “What is it you want?”

  She couldn’t be sure if she lunged forward first, or if he did, or if they did together, but all in a moment their bodies collided, arms wrapping around one another, mouths locking in a first kiss that popped and sizzled with summer passion and the release and refueling of all their built-up tensions and desires. Elizabeth pulled away, gasping, wanting nothing but to kiss him again and again and again. It was like water to a man dying of thirst.

  And she wanted to drink the ocean.

  5

  ___

  They kissed again.

  Mr. Darcy’s heart sang a song of love so loudly he thought if he died that moment, his life would have been worthwhile. It filled his body like a voice in a cavern. It oozed from his pores, made every hair stand on end, shot through him like a shock of lightening. He held her close, wanting nothing to ever part them again. Nothing ever would or could. He wouldn’t let it.

  “Elizabeth,” he muttered, feeling her breath on his neck. She kissed his face. He stooped to kiss her neck, planting his lips along the perfect line of it, breathing her in, feeling the softness of her skin like virgin snow on Christmas morning. “Elizabeth.” Her name was a benison to the ache of his heart. Her skin, to the ache of his body.

  Her hands explored his chest, finding buttons and prying them free. His heart thrilled at the thought of their naked bodies pressing against one another, and he tore the shirt from himself, eager to hasten the process. Then she stepped back, holding a finger to his lips, and began to untie her own dress, till it fell to the floor, revealing her bodice and underskirt. These, too, she made short work of, and soon she stood before him, completely naked in the cool light of the late afternoon. He answered by pulled off his trousers and small clothes, unashamed to stand utterly naked in the presence of the woman he loved.

  “I want you,” she said. “That’s what I want.”

  He nodded. “Then come, my love!”

  This time not only their lips locked, but their hips as well, pressing and grinding against each other in a perfect symphony of urgent desire. “I want you,” she murmured again and again, the words seeming to free her from any last reservations, any inhibitions. The walls had all come down.

  His hands ran through her hair and he relished the feeling, the softness, the wildness of it. He felt her back, the long, gentle curve of it, and rested his palms on the soft flesh of her buttocks. She moaned in pleasure, grinding harder against him, and he felt his manhood surge with pleasure, becoming rock-hard.

  “Take me,” she whispered in his ear. “Take me, Mr. Darcy, and make me yours.”

  His mind was on fire. This was far more erotic than any fantasy he had ever indulged in, even in the privacy of his own bedroom. He spun her around and reached up to cup her naked breasts in his hands, toying with her nipples with the ends of his fingers. She gasped and pressed her buttocks against him, and his member slid between her legs, throbbing against the soft flesh of her thighs. She pushed back and he groaned, feeling her backside against his groin, and fighting the pure bestial desire to bend her over and take her like a wild animal. How good it would feel, how liberating. How intoxicating.

  Then she was turning again, kissing him, and he kissed her with renewed passion. He reached a hand down between them and explored, finding the garden of her womanhood and running his fingertips gently over it, feeling them grow moist.

 
“I will make you my wife, Elizabeth,” he said.

  She nodded, smiling, and pulled on his bottom lip between her own. “Do it.”

  He spun her again and led her to the writing desk, scattering the letters and bending her over it. Then he knelt behind her, spreading her open with his hands, and made love to her from behind. He kissed and licked and sucked, tasting her over and over, while she writhed and giggled and moaned by turns. Wood scraped against wood as they knocked the chair to the side. Finally he stood, took his manhood in his hand, and guided it to her entrance.

  “Are you ready, my love?” he asked.

  “I want to feel you,” she said. “I want to feel you inside me, Mr. Darcy!”

  “Then you shall!”

  He pressed forward just as she sat back into him, and he slid into paradise.

  It was utter ecstasy. She wrapped around him in the most intimate of embraces, squeezing, caressing, as he slid in and back out. He took her hips in his hands and guided her back onto him, feeling her slide all the way down his shaft, until his body slapped into hers, sending little ripples through her flesh.

  “Elizabeth!” he roared, pumping himself into her again and again. She moaned and cried out his name, gripping the top of the writing desk with white knuckles, taking his every inch.

  “Darcy! Oh, Darcy!”

  Again and again he thrust into her, speeding up with the rising intensity of a manic crescendo. She answered in kind, pressing herself into him, finding a rhythm between their bodies, complimenting his every effort with equal reaction. They were in perfect synchronicity, like a flight of geese high in the sky, their formation flawless, their coordination unparalleled.

  They were made for each other.

  “Ohhhh!” Elizabeth’s moan began to rise, a steady, tremulous sound, and the muscles in her arms all tensed. “Ohhhh, God! Darcy! DARCY!”

  She shook and spasmed and he felt her body convulse around him, squeezing again and again, so he stopped pumping and pressed himself in as far as he could go, waiting for her waves of pleasure to subside.

  Then he, too, was overcome.

  “ELIZABETH!”

  His body gave up its gift, sent fully into her own, and he fell back on the chair they had cast aside, winded and beet-red.

  “Oh!” He immediately sprang up from the chair, embarrassed to have been so selfish. “My love, forgive me! Would you like to sit?”

  She laughed then, turning to show her own reddened face, and he admired her beautiful, beautiful eyes. “No, love. I wish to dress. As you should, as well.”

  He shook his head. “I wish to always be naked, for I wish to always be making love to you.”

  She planted a hand on his chest. “Marry me first.”

  “I thought this was my proposal.” He grew serious, taking one knee. “Elizabeth Bennet, I pledge to love you. To honor and cherish you. I promise to never put my pride above our love again, never above your needs again, never.”

  She beamed at him. “Then I accept.”

  THE END.

  The Third Temptation

  of Mr. Darcy

  Temptations Pt. 3

  A Steamy Pride & Prejudice Variation

  J.L. Pearl

  Copyright 2019 J.L. Pearl, all rights reserved.

  No portion of this work may be duplicated or distributed without the author’s permission.

  Temptations is a trio of variation stories featuring characters from Jane Austen’s beloved novel Pride & Prejudice.

  Each story is a very steamy romance and as such should be enjoyed responsibly by readers of a certain age.

  "I'll make a wife of you yet," he murmured.

  "Will you, Mr. Darcy?" Her fingertips teased his stomach. "Might you make a woman of me first?"

  The date has been set. Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet are to be wed. But can passion endure the long engagement, or will our dear couple's desires get the better of them?

  "The Third Temptation of Mr. Darcy" is a Pride & Prejudice variation story featuring characters from Jane Austen's beloved classic novel in very steamy situations, and should be enjoyed responsibly by readers of a certain age. This is the third of a three-part collection.

  1

  ___

  “How could you begin?” Elizabeth Bennet asked. “I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when you had once made a beginning; but what could set you off in the first place?” She was sitting beside her beloved, and now intended, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, in the sitting room of her father’s house at Longbourne.

  Mr. Darcy shook his head as if bewildered. “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”

  Elizabeth smiled playfully. She loved him now, and now she could finally admit and accept that he loved her, but the consequence still boggled her mind. He was not a trifling sort of man. He was not, as far as she had observed, a silly sort of man. And although she might not consider herself silly either—certainly not in the sense that her mother or her youngest sisters might be called silly—nevertheless she was lively, and, at times, impertinent. Or so she had been with him. “My beauty you had early withstood, and as for my manners—my behaviour to you was at least always bordering on the uncivil, and I never spoke to you without rather wishing to give you pain than not. Now be sincere; did you admire me for my impertinence?”

  “For the liveliness of your mind, I did.”

  Now she shook her head. So he had loved her willfulness. She sighed quietly. There were worse things for which one could be loved, she supposed. The liveliness of her mind, as he called it, was not likely to diminish too soon. She glanced his way and saw he was gazing at her. Their eyes met and a tingle shot through a body, as if she had been out in the rain and lightning had struck. Even now, even as she sat beside him and spoke in such an intimate manner, his attention and affection greatly affected her.

  “You may as well call it impertinence at once,” she said, looking down at the floor. “It was very little less.” He opened his mouth to disagree but she stopped him with a soft glance. “The fact is, that you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious attention. You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking, and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so unlike them. Had you not been really amiable, you would have hated me for it; but in spite of the pains you took to disguise yourself, your feelings were always noble and just; and in your heart, you thoroughly despised the persons who so assiduously courted you. There—I have saved you the trouble of accounting for it; and really, all things considered, I begin to think it perfectly reasonable. To be sure, you knew no actual good of me—but nobody thinks of that when they fall in love.”

  He nodded. “Perhaps there is something to what you say. I beg to differ, however, if you mean to suggest there was no good to be seen at all. Your very eyes, Elizabeth, belie the fact. And besides all that, I have always seen virtue in you. Was there no good in your affectionate behaviour to Jane while she was ill at Netherfield?”

  Elizabeth’s eyes popped open. “Dearest Jane! who could have done less for her? But make a virtue of it by all means. My good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasions for teasing and quarrelling with you as often as may be; and I shall begin directly by asking you what made you so unwilling to come to the point at last. What made you so shy of me, when you first called, and afterwards dined here? Why, especially, when you called, did you look as if you did not care about me?”

  Mr. Darcy smiled shyly. “Because you were grave and silent, and gave me no encouragement.”

  Elizabeth laughed and immediately wished she hadn’t; she did not mean to make him feel silly about himself. To his credit, he did not react poorly. Still, the thought of him, who always seemed so confident and forthright, shying away from his intentions for lack
of encouragement, bewildered her somewhat. “But I was embarrassed!” she said.

  “And so was I,” he replied.

  She considered. “You might have talked to me more when you came to dinner.”

  He shook his head ever so slightly. “You really have no idea the effect you have on me, Elizabeth. A man who felt less might have talked more. But I…” He paused. “I have become your captive, alas. I find myself only in command of my emotions until the minute you enter the room. And at that time, no matter how finely I have crafted my words, or how I have imagined I will act, I find it all crumples away into nothing, and my resolve dwindles.”

  She blushed. “How unlucky that you should have a reasonable answer to give, and that I should be so reasonable as to admit it! But I wonder how long you would have gone on, if you had been left to yourself. I wonder when you would have spoken, if I had not asked you! My resolution of thanking you for your kindness to Lydia had certainly great effect. Too much, I am afraid; for what becomes of the moral, if our comfort springs from a breach of promise? for I ought not to have mentioned the subject. This will never do.”

  A flirtatious spark kindled in his eyes when he replied. “You need not distress yourself. The moral will be perfectly fair. Lady Catherine's unjustifiable endeavours to separate us were the means of removing all my doubts. I am not indebted for my present happiness to your eager desire of expressing your gratitude. I was not in a humour to wait for any opening of yours. My aunt's intelligence had given me hope, and I was determined at once to know every thing.”