Pride and Papercuts: Inspired by Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

by Staci Hart

  He didn’t wait for me to free him, moving instead down the bed and to my legs. Broad hands followed the line of my legs, dragging my chemise up with them, tugging to signal me to shuck it. And when I tossed it away and lay back, I found him once again still and silent and reverent as he took in the sight of me, naked but for my stockings, vulnerable and at his mercy.

  I could think of no other place I’d rather be.

  With slow deliberation, he untied one blue satin ribbon of my stockings and rid me of it. Then the other—a faint hiss of satin, a gathering of silk. Another pause. A heartbeat. A breath before I was breathless.

  He was made of velvet and stone, of strength and desire. His hands knew every curve, every soft place, every line of my body, and he tasted every one with skin, with lips, with tongue. He held my breast in his palm like a precious thing and a wanted thing, with demand and tender care. Traced the fluttering flesh between my thighs with a knowing tongue and a desperate love. He bared himself to me through the portal of his dark eyes as he flexed his hips and slipped into the heat of me until we were as close as we could be, as close as we would ever get, which never felt like enough.

  We were a hissing wave licking the sand, a meeting of two forces in an endless, sliding kiss. The shore and the sea, the sun-kissed earth and the tempestuous ocean. The meeting of two elements who would forever be joined, swelling with every tide, kissing with every cresting wave.

  A blind flash. A gasp of pleasure. A throaty moan, and we were pulled into the deep, caught by the undertow and carried away.

  It seemed a long time until we drifted back to ourselves, a knot of limbs, skin to skin. His heart thundered against my ear where he held me, cheek to chest, by way of his hand in my hair and his arm around my back. I listened to his breath as it slowed, the steady rise and fall lulling me into a gentle, flickering sleep, my limbs weighted and heart unburdened.

  “I love you,” he whispered so quietly, it was barely audible.

  But I heard him. I heard him when he said nothing.

  “Never as much as I love you,” I murmured.

  A single chuckling harrumph escaped him. “Will you always insist on winning?”

  I glanced up at him as best I could, and he relaxed his grip to let me. “Yes,” I answered with a sleepy smile.

  Peering down at me, he cupped my jaw, leaning in for a kiss, and said the perfect thing—a newfound trick of his.

  “Good. Because I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

  Thank you so much for reading Pride and Papercuts! Hope you decided to watch your favorite adaptation of our beloved story, regardless of your likely controversial Darcy preferences.

  Interested in the Bennets and their feud with Evelyn Bower? Follow the link to read Coming Up Roses, book one of The Bennet Brothers. And if you’d like to read my free bonus content, just click here!

  If you’re itching for more Austen retellings, I have a treat for you. There’s Wasted Words (Inspired by Emma), A Thousand Letters (Inspired by Persuasion), Love Notes (Inspired by Sense and Sensibility), and Pride and Papercuts, coming fall 2020.

  If the idea of crossing Gatsby and Gossip Girl makes you tingly, you should definitely check out Fool Me Once. It’s the perfect escape in a time we need it the most.

  If you love a good small town, enemies to lovers romantic comedy, turn the page for a sneak peek of Bet The Farm and find out what happens when a lactose intolerant woman inherits a dairy farm.

  I’d love to keep in touch, so come join us in my Facebook group, Read Your Hart Out, and get exclusive giveaways and sneak peeks of future books. And to be sure you don’t miss any releases, you can http://stacihartnovels.com/get-the-newsletter

  Thank you for all your help in spreading the word and telling a friend. I appreciate each and every one of you, and I hope you’ll consider leaving a review on your favorite book site.

  Turn the page to read a sneak peek of Bet The Farm!

  Sneak Peek: Bet the Farm

  OLIVIA

  A very unladylike grunt grated out of me.

  Every muscle engaged as I hauled a ridiculous pink suitcase off the baggage belt of the tiny airport. The curl of my toes kept me braced. My glutes were hard enough to bounce a quarter off of. Shoulders bunched, abs engaged, fingers burning.

  It was more than I’d worked out in a year.

  In that moment, I second guessed everything I’d packed to come home to California, even though I’d been absolutely certain every article of clothing was necessary when I’d packed. But when I stumbled backward from the force of finally loosing my luggage, I questioned the rain boots. And the overalls. And all that plaid. But I was back at the farm after two long years, and I had to look the part.

  The worst part of growing up on a dairy farm was being lactose intolerant.

  Butter and cream, ice cream and cheese, and tanks brimming with milk. Growing up, it was inescapable, and as a sweet, innocent child with no clue of the tragic fate my digestive system had in store, I didn’t have to escape it. I remember sneaking hunks of cheese from the creamery and eating until I was sick in the hay loft. Or sitting across from my grandfather, warm brownie and teeming glass of fresh milk before us and the sounds of crickets floating in on the breeze through the open windows of the farmhouse.

  These days, it was almond milk and soy cheese, margarine and sorbet. I’d abandoned cream, opting to drink my coffee black, which made me feel like a true badass—no easy feat at five feet and change, with hair the color of a penny and enough freckles to find constellations in the array. I was about as badass as a paper towel or a guinea pig or a carrot. Or a guinea pig on a paper towel eating a carrot.

  When the suitcase wheels were on the slick tile floor of tiny baggage claim in the tiny airport, I brushed my hair back from my clammy forehead, scanning the belt for my other suitcase.

  It was equally as ridiculous a shade of pink as the one I propped myself on to catch my breath, a bright bubblegum hue, fit better for a little girl than a grown woman. A New Yorker, no less. But I couldn’t bring myself to curb the inclination to the color. It was a color that instantly brought cheer—you couldn’t tow a suitcase that vivid and hopeful without getting the distinct impression that everything would be all right, regardless of where you were going.

  Even a funeral.

  The hulking pink plastic suitcase rounded the corner of the belt like a shiny-shelled gumball. At the sight of it, I stood and stepped up to the whirring metal track. Remembering my bag behind me, I cast a suspicious glance to the people nearby, noting their distance and attentiveness. But no one paid me or my bag any mind. They probably figured the suitcase was filled with glitter glue and stuffed unicorns.

  Not that pink rain boots were much better.

  I braced myself as the bag came closer, developing a strategy to master the physics of it all, hoping I had enough berth to drag the brick factory off the belt. With a fortifying breath and my lips screwed in determination, I reached for the handles and yanked with all my strength, which got me as far as upending the thing.

  A pair of very large, square hands slid into my periphery.

  “Here, let me help you with—”

  “I’ve got it,” I huffed, shifting to put my back to him.

  With another heave, I pulled, leaning back in the hopes that my weight would help me, but gravity had other plans. It thumped back onto the belt loudly enough to draw everyone’s attention in the vicinity. People shifted out of the way as I walked along side it, a prisoner shackled by way of my hands fisting the handles.

  Mr. Square Hands chuckled and stepped around me, reaching for the bag again. “Seriously, you’re gonna hurt yourself. Let me—”

  “I said, I’ve got it,” I shot, ready to stomp his foot or kick him in the shin if he didn’t back off.

  But then, I lifted my gaze.

  When Kit, the cook, told me someone would be there, I’d expected her, not the hulking expanse of Jake Milovic.

  His hands weren’t the
only square—or large—thing about him. My thirsty eyes drank in the sight, cataloging every detail, noting what had and what hadn’t changed in the years since I’d seen Jake, my grandfather’s right hand. He was a beast of a man, so tall I only came to the divot in his broad chest. Square pecks, wide and solid as granite under his heather-gray T-shirt, which was almost too small. Small enough that it bordered pornographic.

  It was indecent, really.

  His shoulders were square too, strong and straight and proud, and between them stood the column of his neck, corded with more muscles. Muscles on top of muscles, with more brawn than any human should be equipped with, but not enough to feel unnatural or gratuitous. My gaze hung on his jaw, which I instantly decided was my most favorite square—sculpted and strong, masculine and shadowed with dark stubble. That jaw framed a ghost of a smile on wide lips.

  I’d kissed those lips, once upon a time. But the boy who’d owned those lips was gone, replaced by a man who looked like he belonged on an ancient battlefield, wielding a mace and dressed in furs. Even the word man seemed too bland, too thin to describe him. He was a bear, grizzly and wild, loping through a forest alone.

  That was the Jake I remembered. I wondered what he remembered of me.

  His eyes sparked with amusement, crisp and flecked with greens and golds and honey browns, like the first turn of the leaves in autumn.

  “Jake?” I said stupidly, not realizing I’d stopped moving until my suitcase dragged me off balance.

  He moved more gracefully than a man of his size should have been capable of, somehow catching me with one arm and lifting my suitcase with the other. I found myself tucked into his chest and inhaled greedily, my lids fluttering and senses full. He smelled of pine and hay, of old wood and loamy earth. He smelled like he was made of the woods and the soil and the salty sea air.

  He smelled like home.

  His hand was so big, it spanned the small of my back, which held me to him while he turned us like we were dancing. For a moment when he released me, I stood mutely, blinking at him.

  One of his brows rose with the corner of his lips, just a flicker, just a glimpse. “You okay?”

  “Of course I’m okay,” I blustered, smiling. “Are you okay? You didn’t pull anything, did you?”

  “I think I’m all right,” he said, hefting my suitcase with one hand. His bicep turned into a mountain range, with veins snaking like rivers down his forearms and hands. “That one yours too?” He nodded to the suitcase’s twin.

  “How’d you guess?”

  Jake gave me a sidelong glance, that corner of his mouth still just a little higher than the other. “I thought the pink thing was just a phase.”

  I shrugged to cover my wounded ego. “It’s my signature color.”

  “I can see that,” he said, snagging the other suitcase by the handle without breaking stride.

  “That has wheels, you know.”

  He held one out for inspection. “Sure does,” he noted and kept walking toward the exit.

  We walked through the sliding doors toward the parking garage of the Humbolt airport, which was smack dab in the middle of Nowhere, California. The crisp, spring air drifted over us, carrying his scent in the draft.

  God, he’d grown. He’d been big for his age at sixteen, but by my measure, he’d grown nearly a foot taller— two in shoulder width. When he’d shown up at the farmhouse looking for work at sixteen, Pop didn’t think twice. It’d been clear to all of us that Jake had nowhere to go, so Pop took him in, cared for him just like he’d cared for me when my parents died. In turn, Jake worked his ass off for Pop, earned every bit of his room and board and then some.

  Of course, we’d only really known each other that first summer, at the end of which I left for New York to live with my aunt. Jake stayed on the farm indefinitely, and I was glad for his presence there. It excused my guilt for leaving Pop.

  A sharp pinch in my chest brought my palm to the spot, followed by the familiar sting at the corners of my eyes. Tears were never far these days, the endless well forever surging without warning. Because I left the farm, and now, Pop was gone.

  Jake stopped, and I slammed into his back, bouncing off him like a rubber ball. Unfazed, he glanced over his shoulder at me.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  I waved a hand and made a noise of dissent. “Please. I run into brick walls all the time.”

  The quietest chuckle left him. He picked up one of the suitcases like it was empty and deposited it in the bed of his old Chevy.

  A low whistle slipped out of me as I inspected his truck. “A ’67 K20? Boy, she sure is pretty, Jake.” I ran a hand across the shiny cream stripe, crisp against the fire-engine red. “Did you lift it?”

  “Just a couple inches,” he said, depositing the other bag with a thump. “Didn’t figure you for a gearhead.”

  “I did grow up on a farm, you know,” I teased, nonplussed. “Pop loved his old Chevy. When I was little, I helped him tune it up, fix it up, replace parts. He thought it important that I know the difference between a ratchet and a socket at a very young age.”

  “It’s useful knowledge. Not that you have a chance to use it in the city.”

  I frowned, but followed when he got in his truck, sliding in next to him. The leather bench was bouncy, and with a smile, I tested it out. He cut me a look when the squeaking of springs reached his tolerance threshold.

  Warmth bloomed across my cheeks. I reached for the seatbelt as he turned the key, and the truck rumbled to life around us.

  Jake didn’t say a word as he backed out and drove us out of the lot. It wasn’t that comfortable, companionable sort of silence. It was awkward, weighted with half-conceived thoughts and yawning distance.

  I wasn’t accustomed to this kind of quiet. I started a dozen conversations in my mind but couldn’t find the wherewithal to actually speak. Instead, I played every conversation into a dead end, because I got the feeling that was where it would go. Nowhere.

  It wasn’t as if he’d ever been any other way. Really, I didn’t know why I’d always been cowed by his quiet judgments or lack of conversational skills. He was and forever had been the brooding farmhand, the silent workhorse. Lone wolf, and all that. To him, I was the same silly girl with the pink suitcases that abandoned the farm all those years ago.

  But he most definitely was not the same, not by appearance at least. Maybe I’d expected him to be different because of how utterly affected I was by him. Maybe I wanted him to want to talk to me. Maybe I wanted to connect.

  Jake and I were all that Pop had in the end, and I’d been firmly on the other coast finishing my masters with the best intentions to come back to the farm. And I’d graduated. I wouldn’t walk next week, but it didn’t seem to matter now.

  The one person who I wanted to see me graduate was gone.

  And Jake was the final connection I had to the man who raised me. But I got the impression he didn’t want to talk to me, and that knowledge made me feel desperately alone.

  The tears came again, almost too fierce to stop, halted only by a solid pinch of my thigh and a long, hard look at nothing outside the passenger window. Almost immediately, we were in the countryside, the sky cloudless and sun relentlessly beating on the truck, heating the cab like a greenhouse. Sweat blossomed at my nape, across my forehead, down the valley of my spine. A fat droplet rolled between my breasts and into my bra, and as it absorbed, I reached for the window crank in the same moment he reached for the air conditioning.

  I beat him to it though, rolling down the window with gusto, reveling in the feel of the cool coastal air against my overheated skin. The current whipped my hair into a copper tornado, curly and wild, and I gathered it up, reaching into my bag for a hair tie.

  A lock of hair broke free, twisting toward the window, and the sight of the brilliant red against the cornflower blue sky and the rolling grasses that stretched to meet it left me thinking of Pop. Of summer days in his truck with the windows down and Merle
Haggard on the tinny old radio. I was home, and this place would forever be occupied by my grandfather. He was here, everywhere—whispering on the wind, living in the warmth of the sunshine.

  The weight of my loneliness drifted out the window, the burden on my heart easing. I sighed, leaning back in the seat with my eyes on the horizon where blue met green.

  It took a moment to realize Jake was watching me, and when I turned to meet his gaze, I was struck.

  It was only a second, a fleeting, fluttering second, but I saw the honesty of his own pain, of his loss, etched in the lines of his face, the depth of his eyes. Because it wasn’t just me who had lost the most important person in their life.

  He had too.

  And so, I decided right then that it didn’t matter if he didn’t want to talk to me or that we were virtual strangers. It didn’t matter if he didn’t want to connect. Because he needed me just as badly as I needed him. We’d never survive the next few days without each other.

  We were in this together whether he liked it or not.

  “How’s Kit holding up?” I asked, deciding dead-end small talk was better than the silence.

  He didn’t answer right away, his eyes on the road and face tightening almost imperceptibly. “As good as you’d figure.”

  I waited for him to elaborate. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t.

  “How many trays of biscuits has she stress baked?”

  That earned me a smile, small though it was. “About fifty. You’d think she was feeding an army. But they’ve just piled up. None of us feel much like eating.”