“I missed you, my beautiful wife. More than I have the words to convey. My bed was lonely and cold, my sleep troubled with the want of your body in my arms. I even missed our son waking me at ungodly hours of the night.”

Lizzy rose, clasping arms about his waist while Darcy dexterously attacked the row of buttons down her back. “I missed you as well, love, although I had the advantage of nestling Alexander against my chest. It is not nearly as glorious as your nakedness surrounding me, but it soothed me to a degree.”

“He slept with you?”

Lizzy nodded. “I could not bear to sleep alone. I hate it so! Besides, it was terribly cold and I worried for him. At least that was the excuse I used.” She smiled, leaning into his body to bestow sucking kisses to his exposed neck. Darcy shivered and moaned, hands tightening on her waist as he succumbed to the exhilarating sensations.

“Oh, Lizzy! How desperately I need you.” He whispered faintly, vocal cords overwhelmed, and fingers trembling against the thin chemise covering her exposed back. His eyes were closed, ardor rising rapidly as she unbuttoned his shirt, with lips as warm and soft as finest velvet trailing down the midline of his chest. Delicate hands moved gracefully over his torso, grazing puckered nipples before stripping the linen off broad shoulders and reaching to trace the strong bones of his back.

Halting and pulling away after an electrifying dip of her tongue into his navel, Darcy jerking and gasping in delight, she stood and peeled the gown off her shoulders. The corset joined the puddle of fabric at her feet. Darcy groaned, reaching instantly to encircle her hips and draw her toward his aching mouth, but she chuckled softly and clasped his hands. Tugging gently, she stepped backward and drew him to his feet, Darcy swaying slightly.

“Come, lover. Follow me and hold tight to my hands. I would not wish you to faint from the sudden lack of proper blood circulation to other muscles of your body!” The last uttered with a playfully arch glance to his groin and wide grin.

“You minx! Seducing me to achieve such a state and then teasing mercilessly! Do not fear, my beloved vixen, I am quite capable of standing, walking, and doing a great deal more. Lead on and I shall follow happily, but hasten, my sweet, or I will be convincing you of my capabilities on this chair!”

Lizzy laughed, turning and steering the few feet to their bedchamber with her enchanted and extremely aroused spouse inches behind. His breath brushed over her bare shoulder, lips grazing, the rising heat of his body felt deep into her bones, and his free hand roamed insistently over hip and thigh as she walked. The second they entered their favored sanctuary, he flattened his palm over her lower abdomen, hauling her backward onto the hard surfaces of his chest.

With intimately probing fingers rendering her breathless and incoherent, she listened as whispering lips brushed her ear, “I do pray you have slept well over the past days, Elizabeth, as I intend to keep you awake most of the night. Loving you once will not satiate me, I can assure you. I require the glorious sounds of your ecstasy and erotic writhing of your body numerous times to quench my thirst even partially. The hunger to feel your warmth encasing me as we love cannot be satisfied until a banquet course has been served. I need to feast on every inch of you to be truly satisfied. Lord, my precious wife, how beautiful you are and how deeply I love you!” The latter breathless exclamation was uttered as he tenderly rotated her now naked form to face him, eyes afire as he inspected head to toe while fingertips breezily traced her curves.

Lizzy groaned, moving decisively and clasping his face in her palms, lifting on tiptoes to passionately claim his mouth. His poetic words, always so spontaneously expressed from the heart, never failed to stir her tremendously.

Over the course of their marriage, they had learned the blissful happiness achieved in intuitively seeking to discover the innermost yearnings of their partner. A mere glance, fleeting touch, whispered word, or barest kiss was enough to sense the internal necessity. In the main, they discovered that their individual cravings at any given interlude were inevitably hungry for the same level of intensity, be it slow and languorous or fast and furious.

Yet there were those occasions of altered synchronicity. One would wish for a crazy, scorching assignation with rapture attained in a swift, blinding crescendo, while the other preferred gradually building to a prolonged, soothing climatic wave. One would wish for the comfort and intimate familiarity of their bed with bodies pressed together naturally, while the other longed for an exotic locale or position. It was at those times when the full nature of their love for each other was called forth, as the ability to sense the emotional reasoning behind their lover’s wishes and then cheerfully granting that wish brought the highest pleasure and joy.

Such was the case now. Lizzy was in a sudden fever of desire, yet she knew that this was one of those times when Darcy’s deepest needs transcended her own. Instinctively, she recognized that her husband ached to be tenderly loved. His arousal was swift and marked, but his softly spoken words and gentle caresses as well as something indefinable alerted her to his unspoken plea.

With a coarse groan, she softened her kiss, hands loosening their crushing grip to his face and traveling to tangle in his hair. The sensation of firm muscles and the rigid length of him brought shudders to her flesh, but she forced each sinew to relax, pliantly melting into his embrace. Eventually their eyes met. Darcy smiled gently as he stroked over her back, the knowledge of her sacrifice and his gratefulness clear in the glittering blue of his gaze.

“Elizabeth Darcy,” he murmured reverently. “My wife.”

While nibbling kisses to swollen, ruddy lips, he clutched her upper thighs and hoisted her up. She instinctively wrapped legs about his waist while he walked sedately toward their bed. Within minutes, Lizzy would forget her prior salacious insanity. They nestled under a blanket, bodies entwined as they commenced a languid exploration with Darcy fulfilling each spoken phrase as he feasted. Hands and mouths were everywhere; Darcy leading and Lizzy responding as sensations blazed and ebbed only to blaze anew at some fresh sensory assault.

It was cathartic. All the moans and sighs of his beloved purging; each stroke within her purifying; every successive level of passion attained supplanting the sorrow until there was no room for anything but happiness. It was then and only then that he fully surrendered to the pure, absolving pleasure to be found only with his wife.

Mutual cries reverberated. Darcy’s guttural shouts rose to the rafters; Lizzy’s release paling under the intensity of her husband’s unleashed climax. “I love you, Fitzwilliam,” she gasped hoarsely, Darcy far too caught up to be more than peripherally aware of her declaration.

But he felt the sentiment emanating, and embraced her even tighter if that was possible. They lay on their sides with limbs tangled and flesh connected on multiple planes, clasping and caressing as hearts gradually returned to a normal pace. The tenderness and vulnerability of being so rawly exposed aided their ever increasing melding as one soul and, in this particular situation, assisted the final dissipation of Darcy’s dolor.

He pulled her head gently onto his shoulder, kissed the top of her head, and sighed. “I do not think I have ever needed to love you more, my heart. Thank you. I am unsure if I can express how urgently I required your love, but I will try. Be patient with me.”

“You have all the time in the world. I am not going anywhere.”

“Hmmm… Yes, I know this to be true and it fills me with bliss. My good fortune staggers me, but I accept it nonetheless.”

“And so you should. How deficient of you to not accept the Almighty’s wondrous blessing… me!” And she leaned her head back to meet his sparkling eyes with her own, both chuckling.

He stroked her cheek, happiness radiating. “Guess who else is in love?”

“Who?”

“The confirmed bachelor himself. Our wayward cousin Richard.”

“You jest!”

“God’s truth. Behind that flippant exterior beats a heart as sappy as my own. He confessed over dinner one night to harboring a years-long affection that I had no clue about whatsoever.” He paused, running the back of his hand along her clavicle and neck. “You remember our attending Lord Ivers’s ball in London?”

Lizzy blinked, eyebrows rising in a surprised expression much as Darcy had worn when Richard seemed to abruptly change the subject. “I… do, yes.”

“You recall Lord and Lady Fotherby? I believe you conversed with Lady Fotherby, did you not?”

She nodded, still puzzled. “I spoke with them both briefly and Lady Fotherby sat near me for a spell at one point. They are lovely people, or rather I suppose I should say Lord Fotherby was. He rather intimidated me I confess. I do not know if I will ever accustom myself to actually speaking with people who are so noteworthy, the legendary famous who are names read about in newspapers. I think I stammered a bit, but his wife was unassuming, and we shared a time of stimulating conversation.”

“You never stammered, beloved. Were always charming and witty, my perfect Mistress of Pemberley, exceeding all my expectations and swelling my ego outrageously.”

“Pride, Mr. Darcy. Tsk, tsk.”

“Indubitably. But also merely the truth.”

He bestowed several kisses, Lizzy finally murmuring against his lips, “We were discussing Richard’s love life.”