Page 165 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“Oh my God, I love you so much,” she man­aged to gasp against his lips.

He loos­ened his grip so he could lean back, his gaze search­ing. “Does that mean you are will­ing to be to­gether? In an ac­knowl­edged re­la­tion­ship?”

“Yes. You claim I’m brave, but, in fact, I’m a cow­ard, and I’m ashamed of my­self.” She pressed her palm over his mouth when he started to speak. “I was wor­ried about you, of course. You re­ally are a knight in shin­ing ar­mor. I didn’t want that glo­ri­ous ar­mor tar­nished be­cause of me. But I was even more wor­ried about my­self. I worked so hard to es­cape from the ug­li­ness in my past, and now it was go­ing to be dredged up again. Even worse, it would be splashed across the in­ter­na­tional me­dia be­cause you’re so damned fa­mous. So I chick­ened out and ran away to hide.”

His eye­brows drew down into a frown, and he pulled away from her hand. “You also had your fa­ther to con­sider.”

“You saw him with Mikel. He wasn’t wor­ried at all.” She gri­maced. “I should know by now that my fa­ther can take care of him­self.”

She smoothed the hair off his fore­head. “I have never loved any­one the way I love you. You make me want to give you ev­ery­thing that’s in me. No hold­ing back. It’s ter­ri­fy­ing, so I pan­icked.”

“Mi vida, you should never be afraid of lov­ing me. I prom­ise to trea­sure all that you are. And give you all I am in re­turn.” He threaded his fin­gers into her hair and brought his lips a whis­per away from hers. “Tú tienes todo mi corazón. You hold all of my heart. Te adoro.”

And then he kissed her, a kiss that held all his words and all his feel­ings and even a touch of ducal ar­ro­gance.

She rev­eled in it be­cause that was part of who he was. When you loved deeply, you em­braced ev­ery facet of the per­son you gave your heart to.

She ran her hands over his chest, feel­ing the quiver of mus­cles re­spond­ing to her touch. “Would it hurt you to make love to me?”

He touched her thigh near the wound she had for­got­ten about. “Would it hurt you?”

“Hell, no!” She jumped off his lap and grabbed his hand to lead him to the stair­case.

He halted when he reached the post where her jacket hung. “I had a flash­back to the kid­nap­ping,” he said. “Trig­gered by what hap­pened tonight. I used your jacket to pull me out of it.”

Her heart twisted, and she cupped his cheek. “I’m sorry. You’ve been through so much.”

“It was worth it be­cause I saw what a fighter you are, and I needed to fight as well. To con­vince you that our love can with­stand any test.”

She didn’t even try to stop the tears that spilled down her cheeks.

“Don’t cry,” he said as he started up the steps. “Sad is not the mood I want you to be in now.”

“Not sad. Emo­tional.” It was hard to speak through the tight­ness in her throat. “But I know how you can cheer me up.”

“I will do ev­ery­thing in my power.”

Half an hour later, Quinn lay in her bed, her head on Gabriel’s chest, her legs tan­gled with his. She felt as though the glow in­side her was so bright that it should shine out of her skin.

She traced the tat­tooed dragon’s frill with her fin­ger­tip. Gabriel’s breath­ing stut­tered as she cir­cled his nip­ple. He grabbed her hand and lifted it for a quick kiss. “A lit­tle time to rest, por fa­vor,” he said with a laugh.

“I can’t stop touch­ing you,” she said, rev­el­ing in the brush of his warm lips against her knuck­les.

“Ah, then I will not hin­der you.” He placed her hand back on his chest.

She splayed her hand over the dragon. “I’m go­ing to tell you what your un­cle said to me in the hos­pi­tal. I don’t want any se­crets be­tween us ever.”

Gabriel’s fore­head fur­rowed. “What se­cret did he tell you?”

“He ba­si­cally gave us his seal of ap­proval. He said he would pro­tect me with all his re­sources. He loves you so much.” He was will­ing to wel­come an Amer­i­can crim­i­nal into the royal fam­ily if it made Gabriel happy. “But I had al­ready de­cided that I don’t give a shit what any­one else thinks. You love me enough to look past my his­tory. I love you more than enough to look past my his­tory too.”

She waited for his re­ac­tion with trep­i­da­tion. In­stead of sus­pi­cion or anger, she got a long-suf­fer­ing sigh.

“Some­times hav­ing a king for an un­cle is a pain in the ass,” Gabriel said. “He med­dles in ar­eas that are none of his busi­ness. But you can’t stop him be­cause he’s the king.”

“So you aren’t wor­ried that maybe I said I love you only be­cause the king okayed it?”

Gabriel started to laugh, mak­ing the bed vi­brate. She couldn’t help grin­ning along with him as he guf­fawed. “What is so funny?”

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