Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners)(43)

Bella naked.

Bella in the throes of her arousal.

Bella’s euphoric expression as she came. Against his lips. His tongue. His hands. His cock. Time and time again, until there was nothing else in existence but the pleasure they found in each other.

Bella must have felt some of that unique connection.

And yet she had left him.

She had not even bothered to come to him herself but requested the use of a carriage via his butler. Once that permission was given, she had lost no time in leaving Huntley Park. Dante had been too numbed by her hasty departure to even be able to say goodbye to her.

Because he refused to accept it was goodbye, damn it. Their physical and emotional connection had been all too real. Bella must have felt it too. She must.

He had breezed into her home this morning with his usual arrogance, intending to demand her attention rather than asking for it. One look at Bella’s air of fragility, and that arrogance had left him entirely. He had never been any good at asking for what he wanted, but realized this was one of those occasions when he would need to do so. If Bella should refuse him—

She could not refuse him. He would go quietly and completely insane if she were to ask him to leave. She—

“Have you or one of your friends caught your French spy yet?” Bella was finding Dante’s lengthy silence more than a little unnerving. His presence here at all was disturbing enough, without this long silence.

His mouth twisted. “Not yet, no. Although the investigations are continuing.”

Bella frowned. “I pity those other six ladies.”

“It is necessary—”

“I understand that, but as one of the ladies under investigation, I also know how it feels to be wrongly accused.”

Dante winced. “I have apologized. I have also declared your innocence to the Crown with little or no proof but your word and my own belief in your innocence. Tell me what else I might do to remedy my mistake, and I will do it.”

In truth, once she was away from Dante and could think logically again, Bella had moved past his earlier accusations. If there was a female spy among the English aristocracy, then she must be identified and stopped, by whatever means necessary.

“It is no longer of any importance,” she dismissed.

Dante wondered, despite their previous intimacy, if he was no longer of importance to her either.

How ironic this situation was. Seven years ago, Bella had declared her youthful love for him and he had necessarily rejected her, believing she was far too young to deal with the darkness inside him. Now that she was a woman and Dante could no longer fight his attraction to her, he could not bear to think she no longer wanted him.

He straightened his spine. “Bella, you have no male relatives for me to ask permission. Except myself, of course,” he added dryly. “So I will have to put my question to you directly.”

“Yes?”

He breathed in deeply. “I request the honor of being allowed to court you. To spend time with you. For us to know each other better. All with the intention of one day asking you to become my duchess.”

Bella could not have been more shocked if Dante had invited her to ride naked beside him in the park.

Dante was asking? He requested?

This was not the Dante she knew and…and loved. Because she did love him. Had always loved him. Even, she had already guiltily acknowledged to herself, during her marriage to Jeremy. Not that she had ever been less than a loving wife to Jeremy. It had simply been a different sort of love, and not the wild and ecstatic emotion she had always felt for Dante.

“Why?” she questioned.

“Why?” he repeated blankly.

“Yes.” Bella nodded, wishing, hoping, praying.

He began to pace the parlor restlessly, his jaw clenched, eyes glittering a bright green. “Because I love you, am in love with you,” he suddenly burst out. “Please, do not say anything until you have heard me out,” he insisted at Bella’s astonished expression. “I have always loved you, from the moment I looked at you on your sixteenth birthday and realized you were almost a woman. I loved you even more when you were a precocious seventeen. But I was, I am, eleven years older than you, and as you have since learned, my desires are…darker than most.” He shifted uncomfortably.

“I… But… You rejected my declaration of love. Told me I was nothing but a silly child playing at being an adult, and to come back and see you when I had grown up.”

Dante winced at the knowledge she had remembered his response word for word. “At the time, that difference in our ages, along with the fact you were my cousin’s—my half brother’s, stepdaughter,” he corrected, “made the situation seem insurmountable. I could not, in all conscience, admit my love to you, felt you needed more time to enjoy your Seasons and friendships before considering tying yourself down in marriage to a man as demanding and possessive as I.” His frown was pained. “I did not expect you to elope only weeks later with another man.”

“I eloped with Jeremy because you had rejected me and I could not bear to live under the dowager’s roof another day longer.”

“You have since told me you loved him.”

“I came to love Jeremy over time, yes.”

“You did not love him when you married him?”

“I liked him very much, but…no, I did not love him when we married. How could I, when I was still in love with you?”