She wanted him for as long as he wanted her, and in whatever way he wanted her.
She reached up to remove the lace from about her throat. “You might have to be a little less…forceful than you were the other night,” she warned teasingly. “And, as I am rather fond of this gown, I would prefer that you unbutton it down the back for me rather than rip it from my body.” She turned her back toward him, her hands shaking as she removed her lace gloves.
Dante’s hands came down gently on her shoulders. “I have every intention of being gentle. Tonight, I wish to show you… Want you to know I am not always so…forceful. It is my dearest wish to worship every inch of your body with my hands and lips,” he assured her huskily.
Bella gave a shiver of pleasure as she felt his lips caress the bite mark on her shoulder. “Are you going to kiss me better again?”
“You could not be any more perfect than you are, Bella.” His wine-scented breath was warm against her skin as he continued to kiss her shoulder and the nape of her neck, his fingers deftly unfastened the buttons down the back of her gown.
“One more thing.” Bella turned in his arms once her gown was loosened, her hands resting on his shoulders. “You must also be naked this evening.” She was still very aware of the fact he had remained fully dressed during their last encounter. That he had done so made it seem so much more…debauched.
Exciting too, of course.
But Bella wished for something different this evening. A more loving memory she might take away with her when the time came. Not that she thought Dante loved her, or ever would, but she wanted to look at him when they made love this time, to touch him, in the same ways he enjoyed touching her. She wanted to see as well as feel his pleasure.
Dante answered her request by stepping back, his gaze fixed steadily on Bella as he began to remove his clothing. First his jacket, then his waistcoat, followed by his neckcloth. He unfastened his shirt next before pulling it up and over his head.
Bella’s breath caught in her throat as she stared at Dante’s naked chest. His muscles were all tautly defined, evidence of the hours he spent at a boxing salon or some other form of physical exercise. There was a dusting of dark hair across his chest which then tapered down over his flat stomach to disappear beneath the waistband of his evening trousers.
“More,” she encouraged throatily.
Dante’s fingers shook slightly as he unbuttoned the fold of his evening trousers. He had been naked in the presence of numerous ladies—too many—and not given a damn whether or not they found his body pleasing. He was with them only so that he might fuck them. He did not wish to do anything so crude with Bella, wanted to make love to her, all of her. For the first time in his life, it mattered to him whether or not a woman, Bella, found pleasure in looking at his naked body.
He slipped his feet from his evening shoes and then allowed his trousers to drop to the floor before also stepping out of them. He was not wearing any undergarments. Released from all confinement, his fully engorged cock curved up toward his navel.
Dante’s hands clenched at his sides as Bella’s gaze moved over every inch of his body, from his disheveled hair to his bare feet, before returning to the jut of his cock. He groaned out loud as she licked her tongue across her lips.
Her dark gaze moved slowly up to meet his, surprisingly shy. “Your body is beautiful.”
Dante’s breath released in a relieved sigh. “I believe it is the man who is usually expected to say that to the lady.”
Her smile was mischievous. “Our relationship is already so unorthodox, what is one more contradiction? Besides, I wish only to hear the truth from you, not what is expected.”
“You believe our relationship to be unorthodox?”
Bella chuckled softly. “We are related by my mother’s marriage to your cousin.”
“I could be your uncle twice removed, and I would still want you,” Dante growled.
The color deepened in her cheeks as she slowly slid her unfastened gown down her arms and allowed it to slide to her slippered feet. Her chemise met a similar fate, leaving Bella wearing only her white stockings and garters.
Dante had known Bella was beautiful, had touched her in all the places now bared to him. But to gaze upon her naked body, thrown into shadow as well as light from the lit candles, caused his cock to throb and ache.
Her breasts were full, sloping slightly upward and tipped by dark rose nipples that stood proudly erect. Her waist was slender before curving out into luscious and full hips. He winced a little as he saw the bruises on her hips from where he had gripped her so tightly two nights ago.
There was a dark, trimmed thatch of hair between her thighs, covering her mound, although he could already see the red tip of her clitoris poking through those curls.
Revealing Bella was as aroused as he was.
“Would you turn around?” he requested gruffly.
Her eyes widened briefly before she slowly did as he asked. Dante gave a wince as he gazed upon the redness of the globes of her bottom and the slender backs of her thighs.
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “It no longer pains me.”
“It should not be there at all.” Dante stepped forward before falling to his knees behind her. His lips were a gentle caress against that inflamed flesh. “I promise I shall never spank you again,” he groaned.
“Never…?”
Was that disappointment he heard in her voice? Surely not?
“It was most…arousing.” Bella confirmed that it had been disappointment.
“Then perhaps I will not strike you quite so hard,” Dante compromised, thrilled beyond words that Bella enjoyed the same edge of danger to lovemaking that he did. She was, as she had claimed, a woman grown, with wants and desires of her own. Ones she was not afraid to voice. “Is there anything else you would like me to do to you?”
“Anything. Everything.” She gave a breathless laugh. “I put my pleasure completely in your hands, Dante.”
Dear God…
Chapter 13
Bella felt a shiver down her spine as Dante rose to his feet behind her and began to remove the pins from her hair. He ran his long, elegant fingers through those tresses when the last pin had been removed.
“You have beautiful hair,” he murmured approvingly. “Sensuous shoulders.” His lips trailed lightly across her flesh. “Such a slender waist.” Those lips continued on their trail of exploration as Dante once again dropped to his knees behind her. “Sumptuous hips and a delicious ass.” His hands gently cupped those twin globes. “Will you part your legs for me?”
Bella did so after the briefest hesitation. This was Dante, after all, the man she had loved for almost half her lifetime.
He moved to lie on his back between her parted legs, his hands caressing her slender feet as he gazed up at the glistening folds of Bella’s pussy. The muscular width of his shoulders pushed her legs even farther apart as he sat up. Bella gave a low and throaty groan, her hands gripping tightly to his shoulders as he began to explore her mound with his lips and tongue.
Dante touched Bella in no other way, just stroking his tongue against her swollen pussy lips and lapping up her juices before enjoying the hard nubbin of her clit.
He increased the pressure of his tongue, teeth gently biting as he felt her legs start to tremble in her impending release. Her hands tightened on his shoulders, her juices deliciously sweet as that climax rolled over and through her.
Dante rose to his feet several minutes later to take Bella’s hand in his and lead her over to the table. He grabbed several cushions from the chairs and placed them on the tabletop before laying Bella back against them and then joining her.
Her eyes were dark as he claimed her lips with his own, a deep and devouring kiss he was in no rush to end. They had all night to enjoy each other.
Bella could taste herself on Dante lips, adding to the intimacy as their lips and tongues moved together in languorous harmony. Her fingers tightened on his should
ers as he ended the kiss long minutes later by biting down on her bottom lip. Not enough to cause pain, only pleasure.
It was this that was so different in making love with Dante, she acknowledged as his lips now trailed down to her breasts to suck first one nipple into his mouth and then the other. This dangerous edge of pain in Dante’s lovemaking increased her pleasure as well as her desire. She—
Bella groaned and arched up into the purposeful stroking of his fingers between her thighs and the sucking rhythm of his mouth on her nipples as she was hurtled into her second climax.
“Again,” he murmured as his lips moved back up to her throat. “I want you nice and wet for me so that I do not hurt you.”
Bella climaxed twice more before Dante’s fingers left her pussy, and she glanced down to see he was using those cum-slicked fingers to lubricate the length of his cock. She bent her legs and braced the soles of her feet on the table’s edge as he moved to lie between her parted thighs.
This was what she had wanted, to be able to look at Dante’s face as he moved up onto his knees and his hand guided his cock so that it slowly began to breach her channel lips.
There was an expression almost of pain on his face as he entered her inch by slow inch, telling her of the effort he was exerting not to go too fast and risk hurting her.
She was still a little sore down there, but the walls of her channel parted easily for Dante, appearing almost to be welcoming him home.
“Is everything well with you?” he prompted once he was fully inside her and he had moved to lean on his elbows either side of her shoulders so he could look at her.
She nodded. “Very much so.”
His grin was almost boyish. “Then shall we give these dried-up stick-up-their-asses St. Justs something to frown their scandalized disapproval at?”
Bella glanced at the portraits on the walls. They did all look pompously po-faced, as if they had never had sex in their lives unless it was to produce the necessary heir. Pleasure such as she and Dante were sharing, pleasure for pleasure’s sake, looked beyond any of them.
“Yes,” she confirmed as her gaze returned to Dante and her hands moved to grasp the muscled tautness of his ass cheeks. “Take me as if you mean it.”
His eyes darkened. “I do mean it.”
Bella was lost from the first slide and thrust of his cock deep inside her, quickly overwhelmed with climax after climax as that length of steel encased in velvet rubbed against that cluster of nerves inside her with each stroke.
Dante had wondered if the intensity of their lovemaking two nights ago had been something of a fluke, a result of their heightened and mixed emotions. But as Bella’s channel walls tightened and contracted about his cock, time and time again as she climaxed, he knew this ecstasy truly was their own unique physical reaction to each other.
It was glorious.
Breath-stealing.
Heart-pounding.
Utterly miraculous.
He wanted to speak, to tell Bella how beautiful she was, how magnificent their lovemaking, but without breath, he was unable to do any more than worship her with his own body. To continue to take her to that plateau, and then over it, time and time again, until he felt the tingling at the base of his spine and the tightening of his sac, indications of his own imminent release.
Each slide out of his cock was followed by a deep and satisfying thrust back in. Until Dante felt his hot cum shooting down the length of his cock to spurt long and deeply inside Bella’s welcoming heat.
Bella gave a languorous stretch beneath the bedcovers, a smile curving her lips when she woke the following morning.
She and Dante had smiled and laughed together as they pulled their clothes back on haphazardly in the early hours of the morning beneath the disapproving and stoic stares of the St. Just ancestors. For the sake of propriety, they had parted outside Bella’s bedchamber before retiring to their separate rooms, agreeing they had probably shocked Lincoln enough by dismissing him so abruptly last night, and he did not need to find the two of them in bed together this morning.
Bella had slept deeply, and she was a little sore again between her legs, but far less so than after their previous lovemaking.
Her body was becoming accustomed to Dante’s lovemaking and the girth and length of his cock.
Which was probably not a good thing, she realized with a frown.
The dowager’s funeral would take place this afternoon, after which Bella would be free to return to London.
More importantly, to leave Dante.
Her sigh was wistful. She did not want to leave him, to ever be parted from him again, but knew she had no legitimate reason to stay.
Last night had revealed once and for all that she was in love with Dante.
Not as that young and infatuated girl he had so wisely rejected all those years ago, but as the woman she had now become.
It was also a futile and unwanted love she would be wise to keep to herself.
As a distraction, and to pass the hours before the funeral, Bella bathed and dressed before sitting down to read the dowager’s journals. There might not be any more time to do so after the funeral.
She became so immersed in reading those journals, she requested luncheon in her bedchamber and did not see Dante again until they rode to the church together later that afternoon. Not having packed for attending a funeral, Bella wore her darkest gown of deep purple. Dante looked very serious in a black superfine worn over a dark gray waistcoat and snowy white linen, black pantaloons, his Hessians also black.
Considering what a martinet Agatha St. Just had been, the church was surprisingly full, with the servants from the main house, people from the village, and tenants on the estate. Dante had obviously given his permission for the latter to attend rather than continue working.
It was nevertheless a silent and somber occasion, Bella’s own mood one of distraction rather than sadness. She refused to behave the hypocrite because the dowager was dead.
Dante was no more talkative on the drive back to Huntley Park than he had been on the way there, causing Bella to study him surreptitiously beneath lowered lashes. His face was slightly pale, and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes. His expression was one of autocratic disdain.
It was the latter which caused Bella to hesitate to break through that wall of silence.
Except…
She moistened her lips before speaking. “I need to speak with you, Dante.”
He turned to look at her with cool and guarded green eyes. “Can it wait until this evening? I have invited the vicar and his wife, the squire and Lady Danvers, and several other notable people back to the house for refreshment.”
“Of course,” Bella accepted tightly. “But it is a conversation I do need to have with you before I return to London.”
“Are you so anxious to leave?” he came back coldly.
“Here? Oh yes.” Even more so now.
If anything, Dante’s expression became even more remote. “You can at least wait until morning, I hope?”
“Of course.”
The chasm between them seemed to widen as the afternoon progressed. Oh, Dante was charming enough to his guests. He even listened attentively and without comment to the praise heaped upon the “kindness of the dowager within the local community.”
Dante spoke to everyone present. With the exception of Bella.
Admittedly, they were often at different ends of the drawing room as they conversed with the dozen or so guests, but even so, it was noticeable to Bella that Dante seemed to deftly go out of his way in order not to participate in the same conversations she did.
Because he had now taken what he wanted and this was his way of distancing himself from her?
Sadly, that appeared to be the case.
Bella had not expected anything from him in regard to the intimate turn their relationship had taken these past few days. Not even for that relationship to continue once they were both back in London. But Dante’s method of
displaying his own aversion to such an occurrence was hurtful in the extreme. Bella had believed them to be past the stage of not being honest with each other.
Was it possible, Dante wondered, for the situation between himself and Bella to become any more strained than it clearly was today?
Doubtful.
She had avoided him all morning by remaining in her bedchamber, even eating her lunch there, and then this afternoon on the way back from the funeral, she had requested to speak privately with him. Dante knew that could mean only one thing.
She intended to politely but firmly inform him their time of intimacy was over, nor would it continue once they were back in London.
Dante had no wish to hear any of it.
He had no wish to be parted from Bella at all.
Merely thinking about it, of returning to London alone several days after her own departure, of the emptiness of his life without her in it, had created an ache in his chest that refused to go away.
Last night, they had seemed so happy together. Their lovemaking had been every bit as miraculous as the previous occasion. They had been like two naughty children hours later, laughing softly as they dressed and snuck up the wide staircase side by side.
He should never have allowed Bella to sleep alone, to give her time to think. He should have remained with her during the night, made love to her again this morning, have imprinted his possession of her time and time again until she had no desire to leave him.
It only added to his agony to watch how graciously she moved confidently among the guests, giving a word of comfort here, a light brushing of her hand against an arm there. Bella was everything that was elegant and beautiful. A woman any man would be proud to have on his arm.
Her avoidance of being alone with him today showed she did not wish it to be Dante’s arm.
Dante managed to keep his guests for as long as was politely possible, and so delaying the conversation Bella wished to have with him. Delaying the moment when he would hear her say she would shortly be leaving him.
But finally the vicar and his wife, the last guests to depart, were gone home in their carriage, and only Dante and Bella remained in the drawing room.
Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners 2) Page 12