Page 66 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“You have no tat­toos,” he stated with the au­thor­ity of a man who had seen ev­ery inch of her skin. “Why not?”

Be­cause a tat­too was one of the few things her fa­ther had for­bid­den with an ab­so­lute­ness that brooked no ar­gu­ment. Of course, his rea­son­ing was as twisted as he was: In his world, eas­ily iden­ti­fi­able fea­tures of any kind were to be avoided.

“I kept chang­ing my mind about what im­age I would get,” she said with some truth. “Which led me to be­lieve that some­thing per­ma­nently etched on my skin wasn’t a good idea.”

What a con­trast be­tween the two of them. Gabriel’s roots were so deep that even if he left Cal­eva to­mor­row and never came back, his dragon would still be per­fect for him. She had no such touch­stone.

“If I were hold­ing a tat­too nee­dle over your skin right now, what would you choose to have me draw?” He tapped her fore­head gen­tly with one fin­ger. “The first thing that comes to mind.”

“A feather.”

“And why?”

“They’re pretty. Emily Dick­in­son said that hope is the thing with feath­ers.” She felt hokey say­ing that.

He was silent a mo­ment. “I like your choice and your rea­son. You helped me find my hope again.”

Guilt jabbed at her with the re­minder of why she was at the palace in the first place. Then he danced his fin­gers up and down her back, his touch light but sen­sual.

She lifted her head slightly. “Are you play­ing my spine?”

He pressed his fin­ger­tips firmly against her ver­te­brae, then pressed them again in a dif­fer­ent pat­tern, and then changed their po­si­tion again. “That’s the open­ing of ‘Leyenda’ by Al­béniz.” He hummed the rapid, plain­tive notes of a com­po­si­tion so fa­mous that even Quinn rec­og­nized it.

“You didn’t play that tonight,” she said.

She felt a sud­den stiff­ness in his body. “My tech­nique isn’t yet ad­e­quate to han­dle the de­mands of that piece. I didn’t want to em­bar­rass my­self.”

“What I heard tonight was in­cred­i­ble.” She de­cided not to men­tion that it had got­ten them into bed to­gether. “Al­though I’m far from an ex­pert, I think you will blow away…who­ever you plan to ask for that sec­ond opin­ion.” She had al­most said Alejo’s name be­fore she re­mem­bered that Raul had told her about the to­caora. “But you can sched­ule your au­di­tion when you’ve had more time to prac­tice your tech­nique.”

“Dios! You sound like Raul.” Wasn’t that the truth? “I can­not wait any longer. I have al­ready ar­ranged to meet the great to­caora Marisela Alejo in New York in a cou­ple of weeks.”

He turned them both so that they lay on their sides fac­ing each other. “I had for­got­ten why I loved fla­menco in the first place. It’s folk mu­sic, gypsy mu­sic. It’s meant to be sung and played and danced in cafés, not per­formed as an aca­demic ex­er­cise. It should be felt.” He smoothed one hand over her hair. “I locked away my feel­ings af­ter the kid­nap­ping be­cause I was afraid of their ug­li­ness. But you can’t play fla­menco with­out emo­tions. You gave me that again in more ways than one.” He kissed her with such rev­er­ence that she felt like a fraud.

“I heard noth­ing but beauty in your mu­sic.”

“Per­haps be­cause I value it more now that I have ex­pe­ri­enced its op­po­site.” His mouth tight­ened. “See­ing Ko­dra face-to-face re­leased some­thing ter­ri­ble that I can’t shove back in its cage. I need the gui­tar to wres­tle it out of me.”

“Will Marisela Alejo judge you on your tech­nique or your emo­tion?”

She felt the press of his chest against hers as he in­haled sharply. “I be­lieve she will un­der­stand that emo­tion is more im­por­tant. But I don’t know. That’s why I need to see her.”

“What if—” Quinn took his hand and cra­dled it against her shoul­der. “What if she tells you that you aren’t good enough? Will you give up?”

His pow­er­ful fin­gers clenched con­vul­sively around hers, nearly cut­ting off the cir­cu­la­tion. “You are mer­ci­less.”

“Bet­ter to be pre­pared for the worst as well as the best. Then you usu­ally get some­thing in be­tween.”

His grip eased, and the tight­ness around his mouth soft­ened. “She won’t tell me that I should do a world tour the next day. I know that. If she says I’m not good enough, that my ear is gone, I sup­pose I will stop.”

“Why? Do you have to be the best to­caor in the world? Can’t you be good enough for your fam­ily and friends to en­joy? Doesn’t it mean some­thing to bring a small group of peo­ple—peo­ple you care about—plea­sure and joy?”

He pulled his hand free and flung him­self onto his back, his gaze pointed to­ward the or­nately carved and painted wooden ceil­ing. Maybe she’d pushed too hard.

The si­lence stretched. “I’m sor—” she be­gan.

“No!” He held up one hand. “I need to an­swer that.” He found her other hand, in­ter­lac­ing their fin­gers and bring­ing it to rest on the hard plane of his chest. “My fa­ther is the keeper of our coun­try’s past. My mother ne­go­ti­ates treaties and con­tracts to pro­tect Cal­eva’s fu­ture. Mierda, my cousin is the next king. If I am go­ing to refuse to go into the fam­ily busi­ness, I must have a com­pelling rea­son.”

He turned his head to­ward her, his gray eyes in­tense. “My fa­ther has fought my mu­si­cal am­bi­tions ev­ery step of the way. I found the strength to defy him only be­cause I be­lieved I could ex­cel if I worked hard enough. If I can­not be one of the best in the world—” He shrugged, the move­ment mak­ing the sheet be­neath him whis­per. “I will not dis­honor the crown by be­ing medi­ocre.”

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