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abvjTitle: in order to mend
Summary: It's all a very, very bad idea. Or: The Pemberley Digitial arc that Lizzie refuses to talk about in her vlog. For reasons. That may or may not include sexy shenanigans.
Rating: r
Author's Notes: 3,339 words. Set post episode (do we call them episodes or diaries? vlogs? I need to figure this out) 76. Spoilers for everything to date. Thank you to the fabulous![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
empressearwig who is an ace with titles. Written for magisterequitum's prompt, although I took one part and ran with it while ignoring the other. Hope you like it anyway.
Charlotte tells her not to take the job at Pemberley. They have a long, drawn out conversation about it that lasts entirely way too long, with Jane contributing annoyingly accurate points of argument from LA via speakerphone.
Naturally, Lizzie doesn’t listen to either of them.
This really shouldn’t surprise anyone by now.
The first time it happens is a fluke, a mistake, a one-time thing.
Lizzie tells him as much, her mouth slicking against his as he pushes her back, back, back until the curve of her spine is flush with the row of file cabinets behind them. They’re in the copy room. It’s late. It’s all very unoriginal.
(Later, as she adjusts her skirt and he wipes at his mouth where her lipstick has smeared near the corners, Lizzie will cringe. She will hate just how unoriginal and wrong this whole thing is, but right now, as his hands smooth along her thighs and his tongue presses against the roof of her mouth, she can’t really find it in herself to care.)
Still, while she hasn’t yet become completely lost in the way his mouth works against hers, she manages to murmur quietly this is a mistake. She says it softly, barely audible, and only so she can say, with absolutely certainty, that she gave him an out. That she laid the cards out there and he simply chose to ignore them.
But of course he hears her. Of course he does. And Darcy wouldn’t be Darcy if he didn’t jerk back, his eyes wide, his jaw slack as he just stares at her for a long moment, hands stilled over the sharp angles of her hips. For a moment all they can do is stand there and breathe and watch each other. For a span of time that lasts entirely too long, neither of them dare to move, challenging the other to break the silence, to pull away or lean back in. Lizzie is both surprised and relieved when Darcy’s hands tighten at her waist, just slightly, almost digging in to the skin and bones under the thin fabric of her skirt. But he doesn’t dip his head, doesn’t move to slide his mouth against hers again. Her fists curl around his god-awful but somehow adorable suspenders and she thinks this is it. She thinks, thank god, this is over before it even began, and she’s glad, she really is, because Lizzie rarely says things she doesn’t mean, and this would be the biggest mistake ever.
But then Darcy’s hands start to move again, fingers slipping under the cotton of her skirt, skimming along her thighs and running deeper. He inches forward slowly, tilting his head, watching closely for her reaction. When he leans in, she thinks he’s going to kiss her again, but he doesn’t.
His teeth graze her jaw instead, settle against her ear. “Would you like me to stop?” he asks quietly and it’s so unlike Darcy, so unlike the Darcy she thought she knew, that words fail her at every end.
And it’s just not entirely fair because yeah, he’s offering her the same courtesy and giving her an out, but he’s also being Darcy and by this she means he is being a complete and utter jerk about it. (Read: his fingers are between her legs, pressing against her in smooth, slow circles that are already driving her crazy, already causing the arousal to coil and spark deep in her belly, and his mouth is doing glorious things to that spot behind her ear she hates that he found so damn easily.)
Naturally, Lizzie does what anyone in her position would do: she drags his mouth back to hers and doesn’t dare think about the consequences.
Not yet, anyway.
Of course, she calls Charlotte. It’s really the only logical thing to do in this type of situation.
Only after Lizzie dials the number and hears the shrill ring echoing in her ear, she can’t really find the right words. Has no idea what to say or how to say it or if she should even say it at all.
She maybe, probably should have called Jane. Almost did, actually, but Jane would have tried to make it about feelings, about romance, and all those things Lizzie definitely, definitely doesn’t associate with Darcy and that is just not what she wants or needs right now.
What she does want to do is call Lydia. Knows her younger sister would be quick with the sarcasm and jokes, ready and willing to make fun of Darcy’s bowties and suspenders and general Darcy-ness to inadvertently make Lizzie feel better without looking like she’s, you know, actually trying. But they still aren’t talking and even though she would never admit it aloud – Lizzie knows how to hold a grudge too. Even if she isn’t entirely sure what she’s holding a grudge for. Still, she is struck with an intense urge to hang up the phone and dial Lydia just because she knows what Charlotte is going to say and she’s not ready to hear it.
But then Charlotte answers and Lizzie is stuck, blindsided by her cheery hello.
“I slept with Darcy,” she spits out, trying out the words, and winces at the way they sound.
The silence is deafening, and Lizzie immediately reaches for a bottle of wine and takes a swig right out the bottle, classiness be damned. It kind of burns on the way down and she makes a note to buy the more expensive kind next time.
“I knew it! You dirty liar. I knew it. I knew it!” Charlotte exclaims, in between laughter and excitement and pressing for details.
Lizzie doesn’t offer any. The reality of it hasn’t even begun to set in – although she can still feel him between her legs, can still taste him on the tip of her tongue. It’s unnerving, and she takes another swig of her cheap wine to wash it all down. It doesn’t quite work, but that doesn’t keep Lizzie from trying it again just to make sure.
“It’s never going to happen again. It was a mistake. One time thing.”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m serious.”
“Of course you are.”
“Charlotte.”
“What? Lizzie, I’m totally agreeing with you. If you say it was a mistake, that you are never going to let it happen again, then I believe you.”
She’s not. Lizzie knows she’s not. She recognizes Charlotte’s tone as nothing less than condescending, but she’s too tried to call her on it. Pinching the bridge of her nose, Lizzie sighs as she says, “Good. I appreciate it. Thank you.”
There is a beat of silence, then: “We’re probably going to have to leave this out of the video blog, aren’t we?”
“You think?”
“Not funny yet?”
“Not even close.”
The second time is entirely too much like the first time.
Well, sort of.
One second they’re arguing about work and it’s late, again, and she gets to the point where she has no more valid arguments so she starts to saying things just to be mean, and it’s familiar, common ground. He shocks the hell out of her by fighting back. By matching her inch for inch. Darcy gets as angry as she’s ever seen him – which, by all standards, isn’t angry at all, but still – and she likes it a little too much, starts getting really into the whole thing. Jabs a finger in his space, shoves him a little to drive her point home.
When she goes to do it a second time, he catches her wrist, his fingers applying pressure to that space where the bones collide. Lizzie isn’t really sure if he’s pulling her to him or if she’s willingly going, but she doesn’t have time to figure it out before he’s crushing his mouth to hers.
And the truth, the honest to god truth is this:
Lizzie really didn’t expect this to happen again. Maybe she’s thought about it. Maybe she even wanted a repeat performance – although she would not admit that aloud, not yet. But after the first time, after they made an awkward show of fixing clothing and stealing glances, Lizzie caught him watching her out of the corner of her eye. She caught his look, the sheer affection and adoration spark across his features, and she remembered, all too clearly, that he told her he loved her once.
Of course, it was back when he was nothing to her but a punch line and the anger she felt for him something to keep her warm at night, something to drive her rants and blog. She knew then that it wasn’t really fair to him, what they just did, because she didn’t feel that way about him, didn’t know if she was capable of feeling that way about him, and Lizzie can be mean, but she’s never been very good at spiteful, so when she murmured this probably shouldn’t happen again, she mostly meant it.
And Darcy had nodded and agreed and the next morning they continued as if it hadn’t happened at all.
But now Darcy is kissing her hard and bruising, his mouth sliding against hers with the ease and precision of somebody who knows her. He kisses her like he wants this, like he needs it, all jagged edges and sharp angles. It’s the type of kiss she’s never had before, the type of kiss she’s only seen romanticized in novels and on the big screen, and it knocks the wind and all rational thought right out of her.
The force of their kiss reverberates in her bones, in the base of her skull, and before she knows what she’s doing, Lizzie shifts backwards until she can lean against his desk because suddenly her legs are too tired to hold her upright. The edge of the desk digs into her spine, and when Darcy’s mouth starts to slow against hers, starts to turn gentle, she sighs something that is a mixture of both sheer relief and disappointment. When he pulls away, his mouth moving to skim along her jaw, the smooth column of her throat, Lizzie misses the warmth of him immediately. Because he is ridiculously tall, and the angle of them is completely awkward, she leans backwards, lolls her head to the side to provide him with better access as she uses one of her hands for support behind her. The other is still tangled with his, crushed between them, and her back is bending at an unnatural angle that is probably going to hurt tomorrow.
But Lizzie doesn’t want to break the moment, doesn’t want to ask him to stop, to risk this not happening, so she says nothing.
When his mouth finds its way back to hers, she untangles her hand from his, starts working on the buttons of his shirt – just the top two or three, just enough for her to slip her hands under the fabric and spread against the warm skin underneath, the strong shoulders she didn’t want to notice before. He moans a little at that, at her touch, and Lizzie smiles so widely at the sound of it, at the way it settles deep and spreads a warmness straight through her, that her cheeks almost hurt.
They figure out at the same time that the whole sex-on-the-desk-thing, while appealing, isn’t going to work. He is ridiculously tall and the glass is so cold underneath her that it’s almost uncomfortable, so they make it to the couch instead – a mess of tangled limbs and stumbling, laughing as they fall into place. Lizzie slides a thigh on either side of his, tries not to think about how she thought about the last time they did this just this morning when he smiled at her from across the way in a meeting. Tries not to think about how she’s thought about the last time they did this more than is probably healthy.
“This is probably a very bad idea,” he tells her, the voice of reason this time. Lizzie thinks it’s funny that he’s cockblocking himself when she literally has her hands down his pants, but then she looks at him and sees the smile, the look in his eyes, and kisses him instead.
“I think we may be well past the point of caring, sir.”
Lizzie can feel his grin in her teeth when he says, “You’re right.”
Later, she won’t be able to figure out what she finds sexier: hearing him say those words or the way he sighs her name when he comes.
It takes Charlotte literally eighty-six seconds to figure it out.
“You did it again, didn’t you?” she sighs, cutting Lizzie off mid-explanation of her day.
The resulting silence says it all. Lizzie rushes to explain after a particularly long beat, offers excuses, but they’re half-hearted at best. The first time can be a mistake. The second time is a choice. Lizzie knows this, but that doesn’t mean she has to accept it just yet.
“It’s not a thing.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. It’s just, you know…”
“Obviously, I don’t,” Charlotte points out, and Lizzie sometimes hates that they know each other so well because she can totally make out her best friend’s smirk from hundreds of miles away.
“Don’t make this a thing.”
“Oh, I’m not. You are doing that ALL on your own.”
Lizzie doesn’t call Charlotte after the third time.
Or the fourth time.
Or the fifth, six, and seventh times.
Basically, Lizzie avoids Charlotte’s calls for, like, three weeks straight, keeping the conversations they do have to a bare minimum because if anyone is going to call her on her bullshit, it will be Charlotte, and Lizzie just isn’t ready to hear it yet.
They still text though.
It’s much, much easier to keep things a secret in textual conversations.
After the eighth time, Lizzie admits, finally, that it’s sort of a thing.
Except, it isn’t a serious thing. They have rules. Boundaries. They aren’t dating. They’re just… having sex. On a regular basis. In places that are sometimes inappropriate. Sometimes they share a meal, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes she stays over, but most times she doesn’t. Maybe, when they aren’t together doing X-rated things, he texts her first thing, just to say good morning. Maybe, when she’s too tired to go home with him, she still texts him to say good night. Maybe they don’t. It’s not a big deal, really.
It’s none of that stuff that Lizzie has a problem with. She’s a modern woman, she’s done this sort of thing before (she wasn’t exactly dating Wickham for his intelligence, was she?), so it’s not the casualness that bothers her, or the way that casualness starts to fade into something altogether different.
It’s Darcy.
It’s Darcy being nothing like she thought he was. It’s those moments where he manages to be sweet more than condescending. It’s the way he tells her she looks nice in the mornings, it’s the way he knows her coffee order and how she likes her pancakes. It’s the way he treats her during sex – with reverence and admiration, sheer affection.
It’s also his excellent, talented hands and mouth, of course, but mostly the other things.
When she explains these things to Jane in hopes that her older, wiser, worldlier sister can make a sense of such a profound mess, all Lizzie gets in return is:
“Do you like him?”
Lizzie rolls her eyes at Jane even though her sister can’t see her over the phone. “Of course I like him, Jane. I wouldn’t keep having sex with him if I didn’t.”
“I thought you said the sex was spectacular.”
“First, I didn’t use the term spectacular. Stop romanticizing it. Second, no sex is worth trading in my self-worth.”
Jane’s patient sigh echoes over the line. “Have you told him you like him?”
“He’s not an idiot. He knows.”
She can almost see Jane’s look of sheer disappointment when she murmurs, “Have you used words, Lizzie?”
Her thumbnail is between her teeth because she can stop herself, a nervous twitch she thought she rid herself of years ago. When she catches herself doing it, Lizzie drops her hand, shoves it deep in the pocket of her jeans.
“Maybe not so much,” she confides quietly.
“Seems like as good a place to start as any.”
Lizzie is good with words. She loves words. She often uses entirely way too many words when just a few with suffice because she loves them so much. Which is why it is so surprising that this is the way she chooses to let Darcy knows she cares:
“I don’t want you to sleep with anyone else.”
She’s in his office, pressing files onto his desk that he needs to sign. It’s lunch, so nobody is around, but she still keeps her voice low, just for him. His head jerks upwards in surprise as he glances at her.
“I’m not,” he says immediately, albeit a bit slowly.
Smiling, Lizzie half-laughs, half-sighs. She’s being awkward, and she knows it, and it’s just one of the many things that has her so tangled up about this: she is not herself around him. He unnerves her in the most visceral way.
“I’m not either,” she tells him. Then, almost as an afterthought, adds, “In case you were wondering.”
“Good.” Darcy smiles at her slowly and she knows he gets it, that he understands what she’s trying to say.
She wishes she could hate him for it. She really, really does.
The ninth time is that night, in a pool.
This is not nearly as manageable as people think and something they will probably not being doing again anytime soon – unless copious amounts of alcohol are involved. Long story short: they end up laughing more than kissing.
It’s the hardest Lizzie’s laughed in years.
It’s also when she stops keeping count.
When she’s been at Pemberley for nearly two months, Lizzie wakes to an empty bed and the smell of pancakes and coffee. When she stumbles downstairs, Darcy already has a fresh mug waiting for her. He presses it into her hands, and watches closely as she takes a long sip.
It’s sort of creepy, the way he stares, and she calls him on it.
He gets flustered and stutters awkwardly for a moment before sobering. “I would like to take you out on a date, Lizzie Bennet,” he says, so serious, and she can’t help it – she laughs.
“A date?” Lizzie rolls the mug back in forth in her hands for warmth. Her feet are bare against the cool tile of his kitchen and she’ll never understand why he doesn’t have heated floors. He’s rich. He should have heated floors. He doesn’t like it when she points that out, though.
“Yes, dinner, dancing. The types of things normal people do in these situations.”
Quirking an eyebrow, she almost laughs. “We aren’t exactly normal.”
He nods, and she knows him well enough to know he’s choosing his words carefully. He does that with her a lot, still, but she’s trying to break him of the habit. He’s precise, he likes to be precise, and she likes that about him more than she ever thought she could back in the beginning.
Some things are just slow to take, she guesses.
When he speaks again he’s quiet, almost sheepish, but his gaze meets hers head on. “The types of things people do when they care about each other, then.”
Lizzie wonders what it would be like to dance with him when she wasn’t putting so much energy into hating him. She tries to remember if he’s a good dancer. She can’t, but figures he probably is. Her lips curve around the rim of her mug as she takes another sip.
“Will you wear a bowtie?”
“If you want,” he answers slowly, as if he’s trying to work out whether or not this is some sort of test.
“I do,” she tells him with a crooked grin. “I do want.”
His smile is all warmth and affection when he leans across the counter to kiss her.
Her mother cries when they make it official on Facebook.
Summary: It's all a very, very bad idea. Or: The Pemberley Digitial arc that Lizzie refuses to talk about in her vlog. For reasons. That may or may not include sexy shenanigans.
Rating: r
Author's Notes: 3,339 words. Set post episode (do we call them episodes or diaries? vlogs? I need to figure this out) 76. Spoilers for everything to date. Thank you to the fabulous
empressearwig who is an ace with titles. Written for magisterequitum's prompt, although I took one part and ran with it while ignoring the other. Hope you like it anyway.Charlotte tells her not to take the job at Pemberley. They have a long, drawn out conversation about it that lasts entirely way too long, with Jane contributing annoyingly accurate points of argument from LA via speakerphone.
Naturally, Lizzie doesn’t listen to either of them.
This really shouldn’t surprise anyone by now.
The first time it happens is a fluke, a mistake, a one-time thing.
Lizzie tells him as much, her mouth slicking against his as he pushes her back, back, back until the curve of her spine is flush with the row of file cabinets behind them. They’re in the copy room. It’s late. It’s all very unoriginal.
(Later, as she adjusts her skirt and he wipes at his mouth where her lipstick has smeared near the corners, Lizzie will cringe. She will hate just how unoriginal and wrong this whole thing is, but right now, as his hands smooth along her thighs and his tongue presses against the roof of her mouth, she can’t really find it in herself to care.)
Still, while she hasn’t yet become completely lost in the way his mouth works against hers, she manages to murmur quietly this is a mistake. She says it softly, barely audible, and only so she can say, with absolutely certainty, that she gave him an out. That she laid the cards out there and he simply chose to ignore them.
But of course he hears her. Of course he does. And Darcy wouldn’t be Darcy if he didn’t jerk back, his eyes wide, his jaw slack as he just stares at her for a long moment, hands stilled over the sharp angles of her hips. For a moment all they can do is stand there and breathe and watch each other. For a span of time that lasts entirely too long, neither of them dare to move, challenging the other to break the silence, to pull away or lean back in. Lizzie is both surprised and relieved when Darcy’s hands tighten at her waist, just slightly, almost digging in to the skin and bones under the thin fabric of her skirt. But he doesn’t dip his head, doesn’t move to slide his mouth against hers again. Her fists curl around his god-awful but somehow adorable suspenders and she thinks this is it. She thinks, thank god, this is over before it even began, and she’s glad, she really is, because Lizzie rarely says things she doesn’t mean, and this would be the biggest mistake ever.
But then Darcy’s hands start to move again, fingers slipping under the cotton of her skirt, skimming along her thighs and running deeper. He inches forward slowly, tilting his head, watching closely for her reaction. When he leans in, she thinks he’s going to kiss her again, but he doesn’t.
His teeth graze her jaw instead, settle against her ear. “Would you like me to stop?” he asks quietly and it’s so unlike Darcy, so unlike the Darcy she thought she knew, that words fail her at every end.
And it’s just not entirely fair because yeah, he’s offering her the same courtesy and giving her an out, but he’s also being Darcy and by this she means he is being a complete and utter jerk about it. (Read: his fingers are between her legs, pressing against her in smooth, slow circles that are already driving her crazy, already causing the arousal to coil and spark deep in her belly, and his mouth is doing glorious things to that spot behind her ear she hates that he found so damn easily.)
Naturally, Lizzie does what anyone in her position would do: she drags his mouth back to hers and doesn’t dare think about the consequences.
Not yet, anyway.
Of course, she calls Charlotte. It’s really the only logical thing to do in this type of situation.
Only after Lizzie dials the number and hears the shrill ring echoing in her ear, she can’t really find the right words. Has no idea what to say or how to say it or if she should even say it at all.
She maybe, probably should have called Jane. Almost did, actually, but Jane would have tried to make it about feelings, about romance, and all those things Lizzie definitely, definitely doesn’t associate with Darcy and that is just not what she wants or needs right now.
What she does want to do is call Lydia. Knows her younger sister would be quick with the sarcasm and jokes, ready and willing to make fun of Darcy’s bowties and suspenders and general Darcy-ness to inadvertently make Lizzie feel better without looking like she’s, you know, actually trying. But they still aren’t talking and even though she would never admit it aloud – Lizzie knows how to hold a grudge too. Even if she isn’t entirely sure what she’s holding a grudge for. Still, she is struck with an intense urge to hang up the phone and dial Lydia just because she knows what Charlotte is going to say and she’s not ready to hear it.
But then Charlotte answers and Lizzie is stuck, blindsided by her cheery hello.
“I slept with Darcy,” she spits out, trying out the words, and winces at the way they sound.
The silence is deafening, and Lizzie immediately reaches for a bottle of wine and takes a swig right out the bottle, classiness be damned. It kind of burns on the way down and she makes a note to buy the more expensive kind next time.
“I knew it! You dirty liar. I knew it. I knew it!” Charlotte exclaims, in between laughter and excitement and pressing for details.
Lizzie doesn’t offer any. The reality of it hasn’t even begun to set in – although she can still feel him between her legs, can still taste him on the tip of her tongue. It’s unnerving, and she takes another swig of her cheap wine to wash it all down. It doesn’t quite work, but that doesn’t keep Lizzie from trying it again just to make sure.
“It’s never going to happen again. It was a mistake. One time thing.”
“Uh huh.”
“I’m serious.”
“Of course you are.”
“Charlotte.”
“What? Lizzie, I’m totally agreeing with you. If you say it was a mistake, that you are never going to let it happen again, then I believe you.”
She’s not. Lizzie knows she’s not. She recognizes Charlotte’s tone as nothing less than condescending, but she’s too tried to call her on it. Pinching the bridge of her nose, Lizzie sighs as she says, “Good. I appreciate it. Thank you.”
There is a beat of silence, then: “We’re probably going to have to leave this out of the video blog, aren’t we?”
“You think?”
“Not funny yet?”
“Not even close.”
The second time is entirely too much like the first time.
Well, sort of.
One second they’re arguing about work and it’s late, again, and she gets to the point where she has no more valid arguments so she starts to saying things just to be mean, and it’s familiar, common ground. He shocks the hell out of her by fighting back. By matching her inch for inch. Darcy gets as angry as she’s ever seen him – which, by all standards, isn’t angry at all, but still – and she likes it a little too much, starts getting really into the whole thing. Jabs a finger in his space, shoves him a little to drive her point home.
When she goes to do it a second time, he catches her wrist, his fingers applying pressure to that space where the bones collide. Lizzie isn’t really sure if he’s pulling her to him or if she’s willingly going, but she doesn’t have time to figure it out before he’s crushing his mouth to hers.
And the truth, the honest to god truth is this:
Lizzie really didn’t expect this to happen again. Maybe she’s thought about it. Maybe she even wanted a repeat performance – although she would not admit that aloud, not yet. But after the first time, after they made an awkward show of fixing clothing and stealing glances, Lizzie caught him watching her out of the corner of her eye. She caught his look, the sheer affection and adoration spark across his features, and she remembered, all too clearly, that he told her he loved her once.
Of course, it was back when he was nothing to her but a punch line and the anger she felt for him something to keep her warm at night, something to drive her rants and blog. She knew then that it wasn’t really fair to him, what they just did, because she didn’t feel that way about him, didn’t know if she was capable of feeling that way about him, and Lizzie can be mean, but she’s never been very good at spiteful, so when she murmured this probably shouldn’t happen again, she mostly meant it.
And Darcy had nodded and agreed and the next morning they continued as if it hadn’t happened at all.
But now Darcy is kissing her hard and bruising, his mouth sliding against hers with the ease and precision of somebody who knows her. He kisses her like he wants this, like he needs it, all jagged edges and sharp angles. It’s the type of kiss she’s never had before, the type of kiss she’s only seen romanticized in novels and on the big screen, and it knocks the wind and all rational thought right out of her.
The force of their kiss reverberates in her bones, in the base of her skull, and before she knows what she’s doing, Lizzie shifts backwards until she can lean against his desk because suddenly her legs are too tired to hold her upright. The edge of the desk digs into her spine, and when Darcy’s mouth starts to slow against hers, starts to turn gentle, she sighs something that is a mixture of both sheer relief and disappointment. When he pulls away, his mouth moving to skim along her jaw, the smooth column of her throat, Lizzie misses the warmth of him immediately. Because he is ridiculously tall, and the angle of them is completely awkward, she leans backwards, lolls her head to the side to provide him with better access as she uses one of her hands for support behind her. The other is still tangled with his, crushed between them, and her back is bending at an unnatural angle that is probably going to hurt tomorrow.
But Lizzie doesn’t want to break the moment, doesn’t want to ask him to stop, to risk this not happening, so she says nothing.
When his mouth finds its way back to hers, she untangles her hand from his, starts working on the buttons of his shirt – just the top two or three, just enough for her to slip her hands under the fabric and spread against the warm skin underneath, the strong shoulders she didn’t want to notice before. He moans a little at that, at her touch, and Lizzie smiles so widely at the sound of it, at the way it settles deep and spreads a warmness straight through her, that her cheeks almost hurt.
They figure out at the same time that the whole sex-on-the-desk-thing, while appealing, isn’t going to work. He is ridiculously tall and the glass is so cold underneath her that it’s almost uncomfortable, so they make it to the couch instead – a mess of tangled limbs and stumbling, laughing as they fall into place. Lizzie slides a thigh on either side of his, tries not to think about how she thought about the last time they did this just this morning when he smiled at her from across the way in a meeting. Tries not to think about how she’s thought about the last time they did this more than is probably healthy.
“This is probably a very bad idea,” he tells her, the voice of reason this time. Lizzie thinks it’s funny that he’s cockblocking himself when she literally has her hands down his pants, but then she looks at him and sees the smile, the look in his eyes, and kisses him instead.
“I think we may be well past the point of caring, sir.”
Lizzie can feel his grin in her teeth when he says, “You’re right.”
Later, she won’t be able to figure out what she finds sexier: hearing him say those words or the way he sighs her name when he comes.
It takes Charlotte literally eighty-six seconds to figure it out.
“You did it again, didn’t you?” she sighs, cutting Lizzie off mid-explanation of her day.
The resulting silence says it all. Lizzie rushes to explain after a particularly long beat, offers excuses, but they’re half-hearted at best. The first time can be a mistake. The second time is a choice. Lizzie knows this, but that doesn’t mean she has to accept it just yet.
“It’s not a thing.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. It’s just, you know…”
“Obviously, I don’t,” Charlotte points out, and Lizzie sometimes hates that they know each other so well because she can totally make out her best friend’s smirk from hundreds of miles away.
“Don’t make this a thing.”
“Oh, I’m not. You are doing that ALL on your own.”
Lizzie doesn’t call Charlotte after the third time.
Or the fourth time.
Or the fifth, six, and seventh times.
Basically, Lizzie avoids Charlotte’s calls for, like, three weeks straight, keeping the conversations they do have to a bare minimum because if anyone is going to call her on her bullshit, it will be Charlotte, and Lizzie just isn’t ready to hear it yet.
They still text though.
It’s much, much easier to keep things a secret in textual conversations.
After the eighth time, Lizzie admits, finally, that it’s sort of a thing.
Except, it isn’t a serious thing. They have rules. Boundaries. They aren’t dating. They’re just… having sex. On a regular basis. In places that are sometimes inappropriate. Sometimes they share a meal, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes she stays over, but most times she doesn’t. Maybe, when they aren’t together doing X-rated things, he texts her first thing, just to say good morning. Maybe, when she’s too tired to go home with him, she still texts him to say good night. Maybe they don’t. It’s not a big deal, really.
It’s none of that stuff that Lizzie has a problem with. She’s a modern woman, she’s done this sort of thing before (she wasn’t exactly dating Wickham for his intelligence, was she?), so it’s not the casualness that bothers her, or the way that casualness starts to fade into something altogether different.
It’s Darcy.
It’s Darcy being nothing like she thought he was. It’s those moments where he manages to be sweet more than condescending. It’s the way he tells her she looks nice in the mornings, it’s the way he knows her coffee order and how she likes her pancakes. It’s the way he treats her during sex – with reverence and admiration, sheer affection.
It’s also his excellent, talented hands and mouth, of course, but mostly the other things.
When she explains these things to Jane in hopes that her older, wiser, worldlier sister can make a sense of such a profound mess, all Lizzie gets in return is:
“Do you like him?”
Lizzie rolls her eyes at Jane even though her sister can’t see her over the phone. “Of course I like him, Jane. I wouldn’t keep having sex with him if I didn’t.”
“I thought you said the sex was spectacular.”
“First, I didn’t use the term spectacular. Stop romanticizing it. Second, no sex is worth trading in my self-worth.”
Jane’s patient sigh echoes over the line. “Have you told him you like him?”
“He’s not an idiot. He knows.”
She can almost see Jane’s look of sheer disappointment when she murmurs, “Have you used words, Lizzie?”
Her thumbnail is between her teeth because she can stop herself, a nervous twitch she thought she rid herself of years ago. When she catches herself doing it, Lizzie drops her hand, shoves it deep in the pocket of her jeans.
“Maybe not so much,” she confides quietly.
“Seems like as good a place to start as any.”
Lizzie is good with words. She loves words. She often uses entirely way too many words when just a few with suffice because she loves them so much. Which is why it is so surprising that this is the way she chooses to let Darcy knows she cares:
“I don’t want you to sleep with anyone else.”
She’s in his office, pressing files onto his desk that he needs to sign. It’s lunch, so nobody is around, but she still keeps her voice low, just for him. His head jerks upwards in surprise as he glances at her.
“I’m not,” he says immediately, albeit a bit slowly.
Smiling, Lizzie half-laughs, half-sighs. She’s being awkward, and she knows it, and it’s just one of the many things that has her so tangled up about this: she is not herself around him. He unnerves her in the most visceral way.
“I’m not either,” she tells him. Then, almost as an afterthought, adds, “In case you were wondering.”
“Good.” Darcy smiles at her slowly and she knows he gets it, that he understands what she’s trying to say.
She wishes she could hate him for it. She really, really does.
The ninth time is that night, in a pool.
This is not nearly as manageable as people think and something they will probably not being doing again anytime soon – unless copious amounts of alcohol are involved. Long story short: they end up laughing more than kissing.
It’s the hardest Lizzie’s laughed in years.
It’s also when she stops keeping count.
When she’s been at Pemberley for nearly two months, Lizzie wakes to an empty bed and the smell of pancakes and coffee. When she stumbles downstairs, Darcy already has a fresh mug waiting for her. He presses it into her hands, and watches closely as she takes a long sip.
It’s sort of creepy, the way he stares, and she calls him on it.
He gets flustered and stutters awkwardly for a moment before sobering. “I would like to take you out on a date, Lizzie Bennet,” he says, so serious, and she can’t help it – she laughs.
“A date?” Lizzie rolls the mug back in forth in her hands for warmth. Her feet are bare against the cool tile of his kitchen and she’ll never understand why he doesn’t have heated floors. He’s rich. He should have heated floors. He doesn’t like it when she points that out, though.
“Yes, dinner, dancing. The types of things normal people do in these situations.”
Quirking an eyebrow, she almost laughs. “We aren’t exactly normal.”
He nods, and she knows him well enough to know he’s choosing his words carefully. He does that with her a lot, still, but she’s trying to break him of the habit. He’s precise, he likes to be precise, and she likes that about him more than she ever thought she could back in the beginning.
Some things are just slow to take, she guesses.
When he speaks again he’s quiet, almost sheepish, but his gaze meets hers head on. “The types of things people do when they care about each other, then.”
Lizzie wonders what it would be like to dance with him when she wasn’t putting so much energy into hating him. She tries to remember if he’s a good dancer. She can’t, but figures he probably is. Her lips curve around the rim of her mug as she takes another sip.
“Will you wear a bowtie?”
“If you want,” he answers slowly, as if he’s trying to work out whether or not this is some sort of test.
“I do,” she tells him with a crooked grin. “I do want.”
His smile is all warmth and affection when he leans across the counter to kiss her.
Her mother cries when they make it official on Facebook.
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(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-05 11:25 pm (UTC)OH MY GOD SO MUCH HAPPINESS <3333333
also best last line ever
(no subject)
Date: 2013-01-10 01:51 am (UTC)Thank you for reading!