A Higher Education

by Rosalie Stanton

  “I didn’t want anyone to think less of you,” Will said, his voice low, and shakier than before. “I didn’t want anyone thinking you’d gone to bed with me because of who I am.”

  “Who you are.”

  “You’re smart enough to know what I mean.”

  Yeah, she was, but she still wanted to hear it.

  “No one here is going to care how liberal you are about sex,” he continued. “They’re going to hear you stayed in my room and then they’re going to look at you, then look at me, and make snap judgments.”

  “That’s not my problem.”

  He stared at her, incredulous. “Like I said, you’re too smart to mean that.”

  “I am too smart to think that I should have to play the part of the virgin maiden in order to be taken seriously as a person.”

  “No one is disagreeing with you. That’s just not the world we live in.”

  “Yes, and standing back and saying nothing is the perfect way to change that.”

  “Makes just as much sense as yelling at people who are on your side just because they’re trying to look out for you.”

  “I don’t need you to look out for me!”

  “You obviously need someone to!” He gestured toward the club. “Is this really how you think minds are changed?”

  Well, no. She hadn’t set out to change anyone’s mind tonight. She hadn’t set out to do much of anything, except appease her friends and try to clear her head.

  Then Will had shown up and her brain had gone a little fuzzy. He was a threat to rational thought.

  “For the record,” he said, “I agree with you.”

  “You do.”

  “Yes. A woman’s sex life is no one’s business but her own.” He paused. “But I know what people think about women from your…”

  He broke off, looking uncomfortable.

  Elizabeth perked her brows. “My what?”

  For a moment, she was certain he was going to walk away for real. He didn’t. Instead, he pressed closer.

  His nearness was making it hard for her to concentrate. There were reasons to not want him so damn close. Reasons she trusted. But when she shivered, it wasn’t out of disgust. The fire in his eyes had parts of her lighting up that hadn’t so much as flickered in years.

  His gaze dropped to her mouth and lingered there for a long beat. When he spoke again, his voice, while measured, sounded deeper.

  “I know what people think when women in your income level sleep with men in mine. I didn’t want that to happen to you.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Care, I know.” He raised his eyes to hers. “But I do. Not about what people think of you, but how that might affect…where you go. You get a reputation for having a taste for rich men and that can ruin you here, which can ruin you out there. I don’t want that to happen.”

  Elizabeth studied him, trying to hide how hard she trembled, and knowing she failed miserably.

  “You’re right.” At least her voice wasn’t shaking. Bonus. Now she just needed to make her escape. “There is an easy way to avoid getting that kind of reputation. Thanks for your concern.”

  She turned on her heel, intent on continuing the storm off she’d started inside, but then she felt his hand on her wrist, and the warmth of his skin sent electric sparks through hers. All her logic sensors powered down. He must have felt it too, because his grip on her cemented, and he pulled as she pushed toward him. She wasn’t sure entirely how it happened, only that when it did, the section of her brain that was in charge of vetoing bad decisions checked out for the night. Hell, she couldn’t even blame the asshole, seeing as she had practically jumped on him.

  Then his mouth was on hers, and goddamn.

  Elizabeth liked kissing as much as the next girl, but she’d never been the type to swoon from a liplock. Until, that was, this moment. Perhaps it was because she knew she shouldn’t be doing this, but the second she tasted Will, something inside her shifted in such a way she knew it would never shift back. And she might have been embarrassed at the gusto with which she responded had it not been for the deep moan he rumbled against her mouth as he pulled her flush against him. He tore at her with naked desperation, pulling hot, heavy kisses off her lips. His chest at hers, she felt his heart thrumming against her breast, felt his hands move from her hips to her hair, his fingers massaging her scalp as his tongue slipped inside her mouth. And when she moaned, he answered in kind, which would have brought her to her knees had he not been holding her up.

  No man had ever sounded that hungry for her. Ever.

  It was a heady feeling, and damn, she wanted more.

  In that moment, she wanted whatever he had to give her. Which, judging by the bulge pressing into her belly, was quite a lot.

  It couldn’t last forever, though god knew she wanted it to, but the need for oxygen eventually became too pronounced to ignore any longer, forcing her to pull her lips from his. The second she drew in air, her brain kicked back into gear, filling her in on all the reasons why this was a bad idea.

  Like facing the scale the morning after eating one’s weight in ice cream.

  Only Will tasted so, so much better.

  And was probably about a million times worse for her.

  He had his brow pressed to hers, his eyes closed as he gulped lungfuls of air. His hands remained on her, rubbing soothing circles into her skin, making her insides feel funny. Elizabeth had never seen him so…vulnerable.

  And she couldn’t start noticing things like that now. Not now.

  If he kissed her again, she might not come back. And that was dangerous, because Will was not someone she needed in her life, no matter how much her vagina protested.

  The Lyft driver had amazing timing. At once, the parking lot lit up with the flash of headlights, followed by the rumble of a car engine. A jolt of relief shot through her, chased almost instantly by one of regret. The arrival of the getaway car meant she’d run out of time to justify her behavior. It was back to the real world.

  Elizabeth swallowed hard and pulled away.

  Will’s eyes widened and he tightened his grip on her. Don’t go, that look said.

  Words bubbled up her throat, then, twisting into excuses and dismissals. But with him looking at her like that, like she was tearing a part of him away as she moved, they died unspoken on her tongue. Thankfully, her feet still knew what to do.

  Will didn’t say anything as she slipped into the car, but he didn’t move, either. He was still standing there, watching her, when the vehicle pulled out of the parking lot. And even after she could no longer see him, as the distance between them grew farther, she felt his eyes. His hands and his mouth too. His body pressed against hers. His dick against her belly. The way he’d looked at her.

  And she wondered, not for the first time, what the fuck had gotten into her.

  13

  It took Will a good fifteen minutes to convince his feet to move, and his heart another ten to accept that she wasn’t coming back. For a while, though, he’d both looked and felt the fool, standing in the parking lot as people spilled in and out of the club behind him, jumping at every sound that might possibly be that of a red-faced Elizabeth, ordering her driver to bring her back to him.

  Except she wasn’t coming back.

  Will swallowed hard and slid his hands into his pockets, gave the motionless parking lot one last look, then turned and made his way back into the club. He still had her taste in his mouth, still felt warm where she’d been pressed against him. His cock had taken its time in realizing she wasn’t coming back, spurred by the echo of her kisses. It didn’t seem possible that Elizabeth could have felt and tasted better in reality than she had in his fantasies, but if he’d learned anything over the past few weeks, it was that she defied expectation at every turn.

  What would happen when he saw her again? The thought did a funny thing to him, excitement and dread running hand in hand. He’d expected things to change after the night she’d spent at Netherf
ield Hall, but she’d met Wickham almost immediately after he’d dropped her off.

  The second Will had seen them together, he’d closed down. He hadn’t wanted to think about it—about them existing in the same spheres of his life. He hadn’t reached out to her to talk and had grumped around that she hadn’t approached him. Hell, since that night at Netherfield, he hadn’t pursued her at all after, hadn’t done anything to indicate his interest or intent. He’d assumed that Elizabeth would warm to him on her own, perhaps suggest they do something together, or at the very least, tag along with Jane when she visited Charlie. But this thinking alone had been his mistake with Elizabeth from the beginning—assuming she was like every other girl who had ever been interested in him.

  Elizabeth was not every other girl.

  Will shook his head and forced his feet to continue until he was back inside, where the air was so thick with the heavy thrum of music that his body seemed to rattle with every beat. He inhaled a breath that tasted of sweat and beer and battled his way toward the table Elizabeth’s friends had claimed.

  The girls from Longbourn had scattered to the dance floor, having left Charlie at the mercy of his sister, who was whispering furiously into her brother’s ear while said brother gazed adoringly at a point across the room. Will turned and saw Jane was on the dance floor, laughing at something one of the other girls—Lily or Megan or whatever—had said. The contrast was rather starling—he’d seen Jane a lot over the past few weeks. At Netherfield, she seemed demure to the point of being rigid. Polite and friendly but not outgoing. Not like she was truly enjoying herself.

  Not like now.

  Huh.

  “Will!” Caroline had spotted him and waved him over.

  Will blew out a breath and continued negotiating his way between sweaty couples.

  “Where have you been?” Caroline asked when he was near enough to hear her without her yelling. “Is everything okay?”

  He frowned, thinking it obvious where he’d been—he’d taken off rather abruptly after Elizabeth’s departure. His intentions couldn’t have been too difficult to discern.

  “Everything’s fine,” he said, then looked to Charlie, who had yet to acknowledge his presence. “I’m going to head out.”

  “Why?” Caroline blurted, sitting up a little straighter. “We just got here.”

  Yeah, well, the club’s biggest attraction had sped away about twenty minutes prior. There was little chance in taking his mind off her tonight—not with the taste of her still on his lips.

  And he didn’t want his mind off her. He didn’t want tonight to fade. He didn’t want to go back to whatever they’d been doing, and it occurred to him—in a jolt of pure panic—that that was exactly what would happen if he didn’t do something.

  He needed to go after her.

  Will shook his head and met Caroline’s imploring gaze. “I just—I need to take care of something.” He looked again to Charlie, who hadn’t acknowledged his presence at all. “You okay catching an Uber or something to get back?”

  Charlie nodded absently but didn’t respond.

  A mutinous look crossed Caroline’s face before she poked out her lower lip in a frown. “We’ll miss you.”

  He ignored her. “Charlie?” Nothing. He waved a hand in front of his friend’s face. “Anyone home?”

  That seemed to do it. Charlie blinked and shook his head. When he looked at Will, his eyes cleared a bit and a slow, distracted smile drew across his lips. “Oh. Hey.”

  “I’m heading out,” Will said.

  “Okay.”

  “You understand this means that you’ll need to find another way home, right?”

  Charlie frowned as though trying to figure out a complex equation, then nodded. “That’s right. You drove us.”

  Yeah, though why he had, Will still hadn’t figured out. It took forever to get to his car from Netherfield Heights. But Caroline insisted on not paying good money for a cab when they had wheels across campus. She claimed it to be common sense, but Will suspected she didn’t want to be seen in any vehicle with a sticker price valued less than a middle-class family’s annual salary.

  “You’ll be all right getting back?”

  Charlie frowned. “Sure. Do what you gotta, but I think you’re calling it a night a little early. There’s still plenty of time to—”

  “Charlie, you dragged me out to come see your girlfriend. Under false pretenses.”

  “I object. My pretenses weren’t false. I did and still do think you need to lighten up a bit.” He paused. “I didn’t happen to mention Jane was here because I didn’t know if she would be.”

  “You did so,” Caroline interjected. “You found out she was coming out with friends and made a point of learning where so you could crash the scene.”

  Charlie froze, blinked, then inclined his head. “Yes, I might have done that.”

  Will sighed and rolled his eyes. “There’s a word for this, you know.”

  “Romantic?”

  “Did she even want to see you tonight?”

  “When I asked her what her plans were, she said she was going out with friends. She never said she didn’t want to see me.” Charlie shrugged. “And it sounded like a good idea to me. I like her friends. I like you. I like it when you’re less surly, and it’s been a long freaking time since that’s been the case.”

  Caroline shook her head. “You are pathetic. Stalking your own girlfriend.”

  “I am not stalking! There is no stalking! I just… I like being around her and I like being around you.” He paused. “Will, really. Not so much you, Caroline. You’re kind of a buzzkill.”

  Will snorted in spite of himself.

  “And,” Charlie continued, “I maintain what I said earlier. You definitely needed to get out. You’ve been downright depressing to be around recently. Lydia and Mary are both, um, charming. And Kitty—I think that’s her name. She’s Lydia’s roommate and they’re both very outgoing.”

  “I’m not interested in Lydia or Mary or Kitty.”

  “Well, good about Mary,” Charlie said matter-of-factly. “I think she’s gay. But the others—”

  “Charles!” Caroline snapped. “Stop throwing women at him.”

  “The man needs to get laid.”

  Will rolled his eyes, though his thoughts couldn’t help but drag him back to those stolen seconds with Elizabeth outside, and he felt a familiar jolt in a part of his anatomy that he really didn’t want waking up right now.

  “He deserves better than garbage from Longbourn,” Caroline hissed. “And you might not have noticed, but Will has self-respect.”

  Charlie glared at her. “Jane’s at Longbourn.”

  “And Jane may well be the exception,” Caroline replied without missing a beat, though the look in her eyes said plainly that she didn’t believe it. “But the others are just…” She waved a hand at the dance floor, where Lydia and Kitty had a man between them and were being downright indecent, and Mary and Jane were bouncing enthusiastically and notably off-beat to the music. “Not to mention that Elizabeth. Screaming at Will for saying he didn’t sleep with her. What kind of people are they?”

  Will flexed his fists, but didn’t respond. Caroline was trying to get a rise out of him.

  “I’ve never seen Elizabeth like that before,” Charlie said. “She might just be having a bad night.”

  Caroline shook her head. “She was awful.”

  Charlie didn’t look like he agreed, but he also clearly wasn’t up for debating his sister on the issue. Instead, he shifted his attention back to Will. “Point is, there are plenty of people of the female variety that wouldn’t mind ending your dry spell. It was worth a shot.”

  Caroline huffed and crossed her arms, her face contorting into a disapproving scowl.

  Will tightened his jaw and shook his head. “Thanks for that. I’m still leaving, though. So as long as you two can get home all right—”

  “Of course we can,” Charlie said.

  “
Then good night.”

  He turned on his heel and threw himself back into the crowd before either of them could get in another word. He knew if he delayed any longer, he’d talk himself out of it, and that was something he couldn’t abide. He and Elizabeth needed to discuss what had happened. Now. He needed to let her know that his silence over the past few weeks hadn’t been because he wasn’t interested, and hope she felt the same way.

  With the way she’d kissed him, she had to.

  She had to.

  * * *

  Is there any way you were wrong about Will? I mean, that’d be a pretty big thing to be wrong about, so obviously I’m guessing the answer is no, but are you really sure? Positive that he’s who set you up that day?

  The damn cursor was blinking. She hated the cursor.

  Elizabeth pressed her lips together and moved the mouse to the send button for what might have been the fiftieth time since she’d typed up her email to Wickham. And likewise for the fiftieth time, she sighed and moved it away. It felt like she should write more, explain herself and the question, but she didn’t want to get into a discussion about how she’d just made out with the guy who had stunted Wickham’s education and nearly ruined his whole life.

  Because if she started to explain that, she’d have to explain it to herself first, and she wasn’t ready for that.

  “Ugh.” Elizabeth slammed her laptop shut and shot to her feet. Yeah, there was no way she was emailing Wickham. How pathetic would that be?

  Hey, sorry, you know how Will Darcy royally fucked you over? Well, surprise surprise, assholes apparently get me off and I’d feel a lot better about it if you’d tell me he didn’t do that thing that caused the aforementioned royal fucking of you.

  All she wanted to do was assuage her guilt, but there was no doing that. And what the hell did she expect, anyway?

  Did I say Will Darcy? God, how embarrassing is that? No, the guy who fucked me over is Bill Parsley. Sorry about the confusion! Have fun having all the sex.