Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners)(39)

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.