Page 17 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

He caught him­self touch­ing his ear­lobe and jerked his hand down.

He reached around her to open the of­fice door and let her pre­cede him into the bright spring sun­light. “To the right,” he said. “The gray sports car.”

She walked un­til she saw the Spano crouched by the curb. “That’s your car?” Ad­mi­ra­tion widened her eyes, and he felt an un­ex­pected surge of pride.

“I’m glad you like it.”

“It’s more sculp­ture than au­to­mo­bile.” She traced the curve of the door with one fin­ger, and he felt it in his cock. “Isn’t it a Spano? I used to drive one in an auto rac­ing video game.”

He pulled the key fob out of his pocket. “Would you like to drive?”

The sun flashed off her glasses as she jerked around to look at him. “It was a video game. I couldn’t pos­si­bly drive a real one.” She gave him a half smile. “Thanks for of­fer­ing, though.”

He hit a but­ton on the fob, and the but­ter­fly door lifted open.

“That’s much cooler in per­son than in the game,” she ob­served as she sank into the low-slung leather car seat, her satchel clutched on her lap.

“You might want to put your bag in the back,” he said, press­ing an­other but­ton so the door sank back down.

When he folded him­self into the driver’s seat, she was wear­ing re­flec­tive sun­glasses, and her bag was stowed in the space be­hind his seat.

“It’s beau­ti­ful in­side too,” she said, trail­ing a fin­ger­tip over the red and black curves of the dash­board.

Once again, he felt the stir­ring be­tween his legs. They said that a car be­came an ex­ten­sion of one’s body. “Ah, but the real beauty lies where you can’t see it. Un­der the hood.” He touched the ig­ni­tion, and the en­gine rum­bled to life. “Did your video game men­tion the Viper V10 en­gine?”

Af­ter the kid­nap­ping, he used to take the car out on the twist­ing back roads over the cen­tral moun­tains and drive like an ass­hole to try to es­cape the night­mares. It’s a mir­a­cle he hadn’t killed him­self—which might have been his un­ad­mit­ted goal—or even worse, some in­no­cent driver or pedes­trian un­for­tu­nate enough to be on the same road as he was.

“Yeah, and they even got the sound of it right in the game,” Quinn said as he pulled away from the curb. “I guess you have an in-palace me­chanic to keep this thing run­ning.”

Gabriel smiled as he steered the car through the down­town traf­fic. “My un­cle likes sports cars, too, so yes.”

“Your un­cle, who also hap­pens to be the king.” Her tone was be­mused. “Where are we go­ing?” she asked as he headed away from the restau­rant dis­trict and to­ward the high­way.

“I’m in the mood for French cui­sine. There’s a great café just out­side Voile de Brume.”

“We’re go­ing to la ré­gion française?”

“You don’t like French cook­ing?”

“I do, but it’s a hike.”

“It’s a work­ing lunch, re­mem­ber? All time spent with me is bill­able,” Gabriel said.

“I didn’t mean that.” She threw him a dry look. “Well, not ex­actly. But I do have a job.”

“And I’m a client.”

“Yeah, you are.” She fell into an un­smil­ing si­lence.

He was con­tent to con­cen­trate on weav­ing through the nar­row streets, slid­ing through tight open­ings be­tween less nim­ble cars and tak­ing ad­van­tage of the Spano’s phe­nom­e­nal ac­cel­er­a­tion. How­ever, once they were cruis­ing in the fast lane of the high­way, he asked the ques­tion that had been per­co­lat­ing in his mind. “Tell me how you came to Cal­eva.”

She jumped as though he’d fired a gun in­side the car. “I got of­fered a job,” she said.

“Just out of the blue?” He tossed a skep­ti­cal glance in her di­rec­tion. “Cal­eva isn’t the first place most peo­ple think to look for a job. Es­pe­cially if they’re young, tal­ented, and Amer­i­can.”

He caught the wry quirk of her mouth be­fore he looked for­ward again. “Thank you for the ‘tal­ented.’” He heard the sound of her palms rub­bing over the denim of her jeans. “I was look­ing for a new job, and one of my crim­i­nol­ogy pro­fes­sors from col­lege knew Mikel was hir­ing, so she rec­om­mended me for the job. Since I wanted a change of scene, it seemed per­fect. Like the an­swer to a prayer.” Her voice had dropped low on the last sen­tence. “Luck­ily, I speak de­cent Span­ish, so Mikel took me on.”

“Where do you come from in the U.S.?”

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