Update: This is now a preview only story. Chapter one and the bonus chapter at the end is still available, but if you would like to read the rest please visit Amazon Kindle and search Casual by Different Thoughts. Thanks!

First time writer, long time lurker. I know just enough about computers to pretend to know what I'm talking about, but if you see giant flaws in the subject please do your best to ignore them and enjoy the story anyway. This came about after I became burnt out on dramatic fics and I was in the mood for something light, but a bit more than fluff. Not much of a smut writer, so a lot of it is glazed over. There are more chapters to come.

Description: Modern. If there is anything resembling a plot, it would probably be 'Lizzy and Darcy have sex.' Easing into it, so nothing too smutty or obscene, unfortunately. All the main players show up.

The first time I slept with Fitzwilliam Darcy, it was so unexpected, so unlikely that if I wasn't there myself I wouldn't have believed it happened.

At the time, we were more than acquaintances, but not exactly friends. If anything, we were more like enemies who begrudgingly put up with one another because we were forced to be in each other's company due to our mutual friends and careers.

It started out like this. My sister Jane and I had developed a software program designed specifically for medical facilities, to make it incredibly easy for doctors to access a patient's medical history. It was pretty dope, actually; and I say that fully realizing no one uses the word dope anymore.

The idea had sprung from working in a medical records office for a few years and seeing how things could be streamlined with the right kind of software. We had always been into computers and taken several classes on the subject, so one day we just took the leap; I cut my hours at work in order to focus more on finishing my degree in software engineering, during which we also poured every spare moment we had into development. We weren't both able to work full time on it, so it did end up taking quite a while before we had a working prototype and even longer than that before we smoothed it into something worthwhile.

As soon as the kinks were worked out, we had put the word out to businesses that might be interested in using it. Incredibly, we were contacted by someone from Darcy Technologies, the number one software development company in the US. We pretended not to be totally shocked when Mr. Darcy himself met with us. He wanted us to install the software at his friend Charlie Bingley's medical facility, and if it went off without a hitch we would be in business. Of course, much to my ongoing misery, Mr. Darcy himself insisted on standing over our shoulders the entire process, double checking every single aspect of our work.

Any nervousness I had experienced fled under his critical eye and overbearing ways; my courage had risen to the challenge and I was determined not to be intimidated. So what if he was incredibly smart, insanely talented, and ridiculously good looking? I was in no way impressed; I knew our program would streamline the electronic medical record process and there was nothing Darcy could say to change that fact.

Jane was more easy-going about our domineering boss, but that was Jane's personality. Her attitude might have also had to do with the fact that she was mooning over Dr. Charles Bingley the entire time. Fortunately he was aware enough of how lucky he was to gain her interest and hadn't hesitated to ask her out. Unfortunately, Darcy and I often got wrapped up into the couples outings. This made for plenty of time to argue with one another, which we were particularly good at, seeing as how it was pretty much our only form of communication.

After the software was implemented and the employees educated on how to use it, Jane and I walked away with a pretty sizeable paycheck from Darcy Technologies for the rights to our software. Well, walked away was probably not accurate; Darcy had offered cash and a job on his development team. It would have been stupid to turn down the incredible offer, as much as I despised the boorish man and had been looking forward to seeing the back of him. I mean, figuratively. I was in no way interested in his backside, despite how impressively good it looked. Or, whatever; not the point.

After not too much prodding from Jane, I finally accepted. Jane and Charlie still went out on a regular basis, Darcy and I still got dragged out with them every once in a while. We were actually supposed to meet his friend and my sister on the night our relationship had, let's say, slipped into something far more complicated than frienemies, or coworkers, or whatever we had been to one another.

I was picking him up at his condo. Well, okay, he was the one driving us to the party we were supposed to meet our better haves at; I had just taken the bus to his place to make it easier. I may have been in between cars at the moment.

"We're going to be late," I pointed out, knowing how much Darcy absolutely despised being late to anything. For him, ten minutes early was on time, on time was late, and anything past that was a personal disgrace.

"If Charlie had given me any warning-" he grumbled, sounding impressively pissed about the whole situation. Then again, when didn't Christmas fall in December? I rolled my eyes.

"It's not like you have to go," I was swinging my purse in a bored manner, leaning against the wall outside of his bedroom. His door was wide open, of course; for such a private guy, Darcy didn't seem to notice his exhibitionist tendencies. Not that I ever wanted to see him naked.

"I'm your ride, aren't I?" he was suddenly beside me in the open door way. I stopped swinging my purse and might have jumped a little at his close proximity.

"Please," I scoffed, turning towards him and crossing my arms, "You aren't going to use me as an excuse. That's all I need; to hear you whining all night about how it's my fault you had to be social."

"I do not whine." He glared. With practice, I ignored how he looked like he wanted to burn a hole in the side of my head and instead took in his wardrobe choice.

"Really? A suit?" I pursed my lips and looked to the ceiling. "Shocker." I never cared about sparing his feelings because, to be honest, I wasn't sure he had any.

"What's wrong now?" he huffed, looking down at himself. The image he presented wasn't actually a bad one; he had on an expensive looking black suit, and the white shirt he wore contrasted nicely with the color of his tie – a dark blue color that was so close the exact shading of his eye I wondered if he'd had it specially made.

"It's a party, Darcy," I rolled my eyes. "At a dive bar. You were the kind of kid who showed up to birthday parties wearing your church clothes, weren't you?"

"Church clothes?" he was either questioning me or mocking me, from his scathing tone it was hard to tell which. Either way, the glare turned into a scowl. A petulant scowl, I might add. "I suppose this means I have to change," he was already angrily tearing his tie off. I winced, thinking it would be a shame if anything happened to what was, personally and secretly, my favorite tie of his. Not that I really cared.

"No, by all means, wear a suit; make sure everyone remembers you're the boss. Maybe you can even bring your laptop, so no one comes up to talk to you," I suggested.

"Fine by me," he sulked. I sighed and dropped my purse.

"God, you are such a baby," I felt the need to point out.

With both hands, I slipped his jacket off his shoulders, taking advantage of the absolute astonishment that rendered him motionless. I'm not sure we had ever touched before, but I was not about to stand out here another twenty minutes just so he could change into something that would probably turn out to make him look just as unapproachable. I pivoted and hung the jacket on the door handle, afraid he would contemplate bodily harm if I casually tossed it aside. Knowing him, it was probably worth more than the value of all my clothes combined.

He had already gotten rid of the tie, so I unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt and tugged it open a bit, folding the open collar back. I looked him over with a critical eye, and then rolled up his sleeves to his elbows. He took my endeavors to make him appear more casual stoically, which kind of put me on edge, to be honest. At the very least I expected him to complain throughout the process. I also wouldn't put it past him to push me away and tell me to take my opinions on his wardrobe and shove them.

I looked him over again. He was still stiff, but honestly, I couldn't help him with that; it was ingrained. He was also looking at me with an expression I couldn't interpret and for some reason I felt a blush creeping up my neck. Impulsively, I reached up and messed his hair, every strand of which was always perfectly in place.

"Wow, your hair is really soft." The words had left my mouth before I could really think about how it would sound – story of my life. I might have also been beyond destroying his probably very expensive hairdo and was now simply running my hand through it; ostensibly to fix the mess I had made.

But, seriously, that was all that had happened. That was all it had taken for him to lean the remaining distance between us and kiss me. Which, in my defense, was shocking. Seriously – shocking; I am not using that word lightly here. This was the first reason I did not push him away and ask him what the hell he was thinking. And then I noticed it was a nice kiss. Really, really nice. That was the second.

So, I might have started kissing him back. The hand that had just been running through his incredibly soft hair slipped to the back of his neck just as his hand grabbed a fistful of my curls. Instead of things eventually slowing down enough to remember we hated each other, we barely stopped to even take a breath. We definitely didn't speak, an act which I am convinced, no matter what was said by who, would have killed the sudden passion between us and put an end to whatever was happening.

So I kind of just…let nature take its course. Yeah, I hated the guy and I hated myself a little bit for sleeping with someone I despised so much but what could I say? He was a really good kisser. He was also really good at other things too.

There was no hesitation, no awkwardness even though there definitely should have been. We explored each other as new lovers often did, but he was so sure of every move he made. That calculating, intense focus of his was completely on me, and I felt him cataloging every shudder, every hitch of my breath for further review.

I had never been with a man where the first time, at least, didn't have its share of fumbling and hesitancy. Somehow challenged by his effectiveness, I found myself becoming just as in tune to him. I reveled in every groan, every tremor, and especially the way he hissed what may have been the shortest version of my name with his eyes squeezed shut and his jaw clenched. I found I wanted to make him lose the control he wore like a second skin and I did my very best to make that happen. It was almost a battle between us, except the more one of us won, the better it was for the other.

So, yeah, we missed the party.

When I was sneaking out of his house hours later, I had a few missed calls. Both Jane and Charlotte, my new friend who also worked for DT, were attempting to see where I was. Charlotte and I had met my first day on the job and became best friends instantly due to our mutual wit and love of sarcasm. Thinking about Charlotte reminded me that not only did I just sleep with my mortal enemy, but I also just slept with my boss. That couldn't be good.

Surprisingly though, he didn't really make it awkward. In the first show of social grace from him ever, he simply pretended nothing had changed in our relationship. That included still arguing with me over every little thing. He wasn't suddenly sweet; we weren't exchanging shy or flirty smiles in the hallway or during meetings. Nor was he sullen about me leaving his bed without a word; he didn't try to corner me and talk about our relationship. I had to take the afternoon to process how I felt about that, but then I realized I was relieved. I definitely didn't want a relationship with this man; we were way too different on almost every level.

So, we slept together. It would have been nice if there had been alcohol to blame, but there it is.

That would have probably been the end of it if it hadn't happened again.

UPDATE: This is the first chapter of a published Kindle ebook. If you would like to read the rest, please check out Casual by Differenthoughts on Amazon Kindle. Feel free to contact me if you have any trouble.

The next chapter is a bonus chapter I will also leave up, but be aware it is set at the END of the story and will obviously contain major spoilers.

Thanks!