Page 118 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“That’s all of the truth that mat­ters,” Quinn said.

“So there is more.” His eyes clouded, and his jaw went tight. “You say you love me, but you shut me out of what has made you the amaz­ing woman you are.”

Did he sound…hurt? Her heart twisted. “I do love you. I’m afraid that you won’t love me.”

“Then you don’t know me at all.” He re­leased her hands and shifted away from her.

The few inches of space be­tween them felt like a bot­tom­less chasm. “I know too much about you,” she cried. “You sac­ri­ficed your­self to pro­tect Raul, not just be­cause he was the cousin you love, but be­cause he is the prince of your coun­try. You live and breathe duty and honor.” She low­ered her voice to a whis­per. “I am the op­po­site.”

“You say that Mikel gave you a sec­ond chance. Yet you will not give your­self one.” His voice was hard with anger. “The past will crush you with its ter­ri­ble weight if you al­low it to. I’ve learned that you have to face it…and share the bur­den with those who would help you.”

“My past is very dif­fer­ent from yours. I thought I could out­run it, but it fol­lowed me here.”

“You’ve served your sen­tence. Put it be­hind you.” He took her hands again. “I will win your trust, car­iño mío. So you will tell me all the truth.”

If the truth af­fected only her, she would spill her guts to this man who still wanted her de­spite her con­fes­sion. But it was so much more com­pli­cated.

She stared at him, search­ing his face for any hint of con­tempt or dis­gust, but find­ing none. How could he not care about her crim­i­nal record? Was he so in­su­lated from re­al­ity by his rank that he didn’t un­der­stand how bad it was? Or was he so be­sot­ted with his ex­otic Amer­i­can lover that he didn’t care?

Re­lief and a sense of re­prieve al­lowed her lungs to ex­pand fully again. She could be with Gabriel a lit­tle longer. She would store ev­ery mo­ment in a trea­sure chest of mem­ory.

She twisted and set one knee on the couch so she could frame his face with her hands. “For now, we will pre­tend that it’s pos­si­ble to for­get my past. Be­cause I can’t bear to give you up yet.”

She felt the mus­cles of his face move un­der her palms as he frowned. “Do not talk of giv­ing up. I love you too much.”

His kiss was both ten­der and claim­ing, his lips slant­ing against hers in pos­ses­sion while his hands roamed over her back to press her closer.

De­sire bloomed be­tween her legs and un­furled into ev­ery part of her body.

“Ohhh, why won’t you lis­ten to me?” she breathed against his neck be­fore she gave him a light nip.

“Be­cause you make no sense.” He held her shoul­ders with both hands. “I want to make love to you, with em­pha­sis on the ‘love,’ car­iño mío.”

He made the words a se­duc­tion and a prom­ise.

“Up­stairs.” She took one of his hands and led him up to her bed­room.

Be­fore she reached the bed, he pulled her to a stop. “Tell me that you love me.”

“You know I do. More than is good for ei­ther of us.”

“Im­posi­ble!” But he seemed sat­is­fied with her an­swer be­cause he ran his hands down her rib cage un­til he reached the hem of her T-shirt. In­sin­u­at­ing his fin­gers un­der­neath it, he pushed the fab­ric up­ward un­til he un­cov­ered her breasts in their black lace bra.

“First, I am go­ing to make love to your right breast,” he said, his voice al­most a purr as he wrapped his hands around her torso while keep­ing her shirt rucked up. He dipped his head to kiss the nip­ple that his words had al­ready hard­ened to a peak.

“Yessss!” she hissed as he opened his mouth to flick her with his tongue, the lace adding a del­i­cate fric­tion. When he fas­tened his lips against her and sucked, she arched and threaded her fin­gers into the silky strands of his hair to hold him there while waves of elec­tric plea­sure ric­o­cheted down be­tween her legs.

When he lifted his mouth away from her, the cool air on the warm, wet lace of her bra made her gasp.

“It would be eas­ier with­out this.” He tugged at her shirt, so she lifted her arms to let him peel it up over her head and toss it away. Teas­ing, he trailed his fin­ger­tips back down along the ten­dons of her neck, along her col­lar­bones, and around the scal­lops of lace be­fore he bent to draw her other nip­ple into his mouth. As he sucked, he played with her right breast, cup­ping it, rub­bing his palm over the nip­ple be­fore pinch­ing it lightly.

“And now I need your skin.” He reached around to un­hook her bra. She shook it down her arms un­til it fell to the floor.

He mur­mured some­thing in Span­ish that she couldn’t trans­late be­cause her brain was fogged with arousal.

Then his mouth was on her bare flesh, and the in­ten­sity of the feel­ing shocked her. Maybe it was be­cause he re­fused to be­lieve the worst of her.

She cra­dled his head in her hands and eased it away from her breasts. “Your shirt. Off.”

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