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They’re in bed together the first time she says it.
To be more precise, she’s halfway down his dick and using her momentum to slide the rest of the way.
(William is biting his lip and reminding himself how terribly humiliating it would be if this ended too quickly. The condom only dulls so much sensation, and she is hot and wet and feels like coming home. He’s heard reciting box scores in your head can help. He was never much of a baseball fan. Maybe he’ll start to follow the Giants.)
“God, I love you,” she gasps out.
He freezes.
(Crumpled in a corner of the room is a gray dress with a red and yellow floral print. William had recognized the dress as soon as he got to the restaurant. She smiled sheepishly and shrugged at him, and he had pulled her close. The criss-cross bodice is even more tantalizing now that he knows he is allowed to touch. They did a lot of touching that first week, before he had to go back to San Francisco, and every time he touches Lizzie Bennet he still has to remind himself this is real, this isn’t a dream, this is real.)
“William?” She is a blur above him, creamy skin and dark eyes in the shadows. “This is more fun for both of us if you move too.”
His hands have settled into a vise grip on her hips, but he slides one up to palm her nipple through her lacy bra. Her underpants are on the floor somewhere with his boxers, pants and tie. They didn’t get much more off than they needed to before falling into bed. Four nights apart is four too long, in his opinion.
“Sorry,” he croaks. “Darcybot malfunction.”
Lizzie laughs, as he knew she would, and picks up speed. He plants his feet on the bed for better leverage, and she slides her hands up his chest, running them under his t-shirt and unbuttoned dress shirt.
(What does it mean, that she said it? That she said it now? He can’t help thinking, even buried all the way inside her. He told her he still felt the same way, and he meant it, and he believes that she cares for him now. But her rejection from last Halloween still stings, a little, like lemon juice in a paper cut. He wanted to make sure she felt the same way before he said it again. Does she mean it? Why is she saying it now, of all times?)
She is rocking above him, her head tilted back and her neck a sweet line against the ceiling. He wants to sit up, tangle his fingers in her hair and pull her to him, kiss her, but she cries out something that could be his name and clenches around him, and it tips him over the edge after her.
He blinks back to himself to find her smiling at him as she lets herself down to lie on his chest. He kisses every inch he can reach as he rolls her over to get up and dispose of the used condom.
When he gets back, she is lying still, her hair a darker spill against the pillows in the dark bedroom.
“Lizzie?” He whispers.
“Mmmm.”
He shucks off the rest of his clothes and climbs into bed next to her. Tomorrow, he thinks. We can talk about it tomorrow, and he curls around her to sleep. He needs time to figure out how he wants to ask her about it, anyway.
***
His contacts feel like they are glued to his eyeballs the next morning. He stumbles into the bathroom to take them out and put his glasses on, grabbing yesterday’s boxers and t-shirt from the floor as he passes. Lizzie is still sleeping, so he goes down to the kitchen and plugs in Bing’s coffee maker. William prefers the kind of fresh-ground beans Caroline always kept stocked while they were staying at Netherfield, but for this morning he is able to find an abandoned bag buried in the freezer. It will do in a pinch.
He is staring into Bing’s fridge blankly and thinking if he will be coming back to Netherfield much in the next five-and-a-half weeks, he should really consider getting groceries delivered, when he hears her come in.
“Oh thank god, you made coffee already.”
She is wearing his dress shirt from last night, and he is turning to ask her what she wants to do about breakfast as she pours a mug of coffee for herself and says “I knew I loved you for a reason.”
He freezes, again. Did she just—again—what does that. He clears his throat. “Do you?” He squeaks as he says it and he wants to kill himself.
“No, not really,” she laughs. But before his heart has time to do much more than stutter, she continues, “I think I love you for no reason at all.” She sips her black coffee, wrinkles her nose, and says, “I’m sure there’s no milk, but do you know where Bing keeps the sugar?” And she starts rifling through the drawers below the coffee-maker.
“Lizzie.” It comes out strangled and he has to swallow and try again. “Lizzie, please don’t tease me.”
She looks up from the silverware drawer, on the other side of the kitchen island, where she has moved in her search for sweetener. “I’m…not?” He wonders what she sees in his face because she puts her coffee mug down and says, “William, what’s going on?”
“You…what you said…and last night, while we were….”
“At the restaurant? Look, I’m sorry about Ricky, but I don’t really—“
“No. Not at the restaurant. After. Here. When we were…uh…,” he doesn’t really know what to call it. He hasn’t had time to plan what he wants to say. Maybe it’s better that way-- talking with Lizzie tends to blow his scripts to hell.
“…otherwise occupied. Yeah. That was…fun.” She’s smiling, even if her ears are a little pink. Smiling is good, right? And girls don’t really say things they don’t mean in the heat of passion. Not like guys do. Right?
“Yes. Last night. You—you said you loved me. And again just now.”
She is quiet for a long minute, her eyes on him, a furrow in her brow. “…Yes?”
“And I just…I wanted to…to know.” He doesn’t know what to do with his hands or where to look, so he looks down at his bare feet.
“Know…what, exactly? William, I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be dense, really I’m not, but I’m not sure I understand the question?” He has her full attention. She has come back to his side of the island and he can feel her eyes on him.
He closes his eyes and exhales. At least she isn’t filming, he thinks, and says “Do you. Love me, that is.”
His pulse is roaring in his ears and the kitchen feels bigger than it was when he walked in and--
“…Yes?” she says --what does that lift at the end mean, why does it sound like a question, what does she-- “But you knew that already. Didn’t you?”
He shakes his head, feeling like a two-year-old, but dares to open his eyes again.
“Oh. Oh! Oh, William, yes, of course I do, of course I love you--” and he hears her (his) shirt rustle as she comes closer. Her toes—painted an unlikely bubblegum pink—enter his field of vision and she wraps her arms around his waist and buries her head against his chest.
His arms wrap around her reflexively, and he dares to lift his head enough to rest his chin on top of her hair. The early-morning sunlight through the kitchen windows bounces a reflection off of the granite countertop of the island; he is concentrating on breathing and making sure his knees, weak with relief, continue to bear his weight when she lifts her head, just a little.
“William?”
“Hmmm?” and he can feel her pulling back in the circle of his arms.
“Why did you—“ and she is pulling back further, looking down, tangling her fingers in her (his) shirt-- “feel like you needed to ask me that?”
“Because I needed to know?” Now he’s feeling like he’s the one missing a part of the conversation.
“I understand that, I do, I just—I guess I thought you already…did?” She sounds unsure, more unsure than she has sounded in the past twelve days, and so he ducks his head to try to catch her eye. But she is intent on his t-shirt now, stroking the place over his heart where his tie would be.
“Well…I had hopes. And there have been moments, things that you have done, that have seemed to imply it. But I stopped depending on my ability to see clearly around you a long time ago. And you have never actually…uh…said so. Not in so many words.”
“Yes I have!” Now she’s indignant, ready to challenge him, and he feels his heart speed up as she meets his eyes. “…Haven’t I?” He shakes his head minutely as she searches his face, brow furrowed again, and he sees the second the penny drops.
“Oh, William. I am so…. Oh!” She pulls away, hand to her lips, eyes wide and distressed.
“Lizzie—“ he reaches for her, but she is already there, meeting him halfway.
“No, let me…William, I am totally, one-hundred-and-ten percent, butt-crazy in love with you. And I am sorry I ever gave you a moment’s reason to doubt it.” And now her hands are on his shoulders, on the back of his neck, pulling him down to kiss her, “Is that clear enough for you?”
“Crystal, Lizzie Bennet,” he gets out, before he has to kiss her again and again. “And I love you too,” he manages, but then he is swept up in her hands on him and his on her and the coffee is forgotten as she pulls him back to the bedroom. By the time they make it out of Netherfield, it’s closer to lunchtime than it is to breakfast. Luckily Lizzie knows a good place for brunch. The coffee isn’t the fair-trade organic type that Caroline stocks at Netherfield, but it’s decent enough.