Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners)(36)

His throat moved as he swallowed. “I am endeavoring to…make amends for my previous behavior.”

“For believing me to be a spy?”

“No!”

“Then what?”

“For spanking you and then savaging you like some wild animal!” he snarled—very much like that wild animal.

Bella picked up her glass and took a sip of her wine before answering him. “Did I ask you to apologize?”

“No.”

“Nor will I,” she dismissed. “I am not saying that what you did was right. But,” she continued firmly as Dante would have spoken, “I also know I might have stopped it at any time if that was what I wished.”

“How so?”

“Daffodil,” she reminded him softly.

“I—” Dante stood up restlessly from the table. “You could not even bear for me to touch you the following morning.”

“I believe I told you I could not bear to have anything or anyone touch me the following morning,” she admitted ruefully. “Our…lovemaking had left me feeling raw, exposed, and my skin so sensitive that each brush of my clothing against it was uncomfortable.”

Dante’s eyes were so dark a green, they almost appeared black. “Why the hell did you not say daffodil?”

Her gaze met his probing one unflinchingly. “Because I did not wish to.”

His hands had clenched at his sides. “You enjoyed what we did? What I did?”

She rose gracefully to her feet. “Some of it shocked me, I admit.” Her cheeks warmed at those memories. “But I am a woman grown now, Dante, not a child to be afraid of the passion a man and woman can share together.”

“Did you share such passion with Aston?”

Her back stiffened. “I have told you, I will not discuss my relationship with Jeremy with you.” She reached up and gently touched the tension of his jaw with her gloved hand. “Dante, do not continue to berate yourself for something I could have stopped in a moment.”

A nerve pulsed beneath her fingertips. “You believe I would have listened?”

“I am certain of it.”

Dante gazed down at her searchingly, but could see only that certainty and trust in the steadiness of the dark eyes that met his unwaveringly. He reached up to cover her hand with his. “I have a mad desire, a wish for us to obliterate all of our loathsome memories of this place.”

“Yes?” she prompted breathlessly.

He winced. “But perhaps you are too…uncomfortable still from our last encounter?”

Bella could still feel every caress—and bite—Dante had given her after spanking her, and between her thighs was a little sore still from how big he had been inside her. But if he was suggesting what she thought he was… “Not too uncomfortable,” she murmured.

Desire blazed in Dante’s eyes so that they were now a clear emerald green. “Then— Not now, Lincoln!” he barked at the butler as the other man chose that moment to enter the room to remove their dinner plates. “Lady Aston and I do not require anything more this evening. You are dismissed for the night,” he added without taking the fierceness of his gaze from Bella’s upturned face.

“Very well, Your Grace.” The butler bowed back out of the room.

Bella waited until the butler had closed the door behind him before giggling. “What do you suppose Lincoln will make of that?”

“I do not give a damn what he thinks,” Dante assured her vehemently. “Nor what he makes of this.” He released Bella to step toward the dining table and sweep everything from its surface.

“Dante?” Bella watched as it all crashed onto the carpeted floor.

The plates. Flatware. Crystal glasses. The candelabra—the candles were instantly extinguished by the wine spilled from the shattered decanter, thank goodness. Although it now left only a lit candle above the unlit fireplace and another on the side dresser as their only source of light.

“I want to make love to you on this tabletop.” Dante turned back to her, eyes fever bright. “I want to say fuck you to my aunt and all these other stuffy ancestors looking down upon us so disapprovingly.” He did not spare the portraits of those ancestors on the walls so much as a glance as he took Bella’s hands in his. “Will you allow it?”

Bella’s heart was beating so loudly and rapidly, she could hear it thundering in her ears. Her thoughts were racing as she wondered at the wisdom of allowing this to happen again.

Wisdom?

When had wisdom ever featured in her relationship with Dante?

Besides, the two of them would part soon enough, and after that, she might never see Dante again.

This was the conclusion Bella’s thoughts had come to when she ate alone in her bedchamber the night before, surrounded by all the past unhappy memories of Huntley Park.

She had loved Dante since she was thirteen years old.

It was not that amiable, undemanding love she and Jeremy had shared during their marriage, but something wild and untamed. As Dante was wild and untamed.

Bella wanted—

She wanted—

Dante.

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.