Page 33 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

Liq­uid heat ran through her as her own gaze drifted over the sharp an­gles of his cheek­bones, the hard line of his jaw, and the sculpted curves of his mouth. She lifted her free hand to rest against the warm, solid wall of his chest so she could feel the pulse of his heart un­der her palm. Lean­ing to­ward him, she let her head fall back in in­vi­ta­tion.

When he went still, she con­sid­ered ris­ing onto her toes and ini­ti­at­ing the kiss her­self. With an­other man, she would have, but the im­age of the king’s as­sis­tant bow­ing to Gabriel while the head groom led a horse down the street kept her pas­sive.

She nearly swore when Gabriel gave his head a barely per­cep­ti­ble shake and stepped back. “Thank you for al­low­ing me into your home when I was…not at my best.” He gave her a self-dep­re­cat­ing gri­mace. “I apol­o­gize for my con­di­tion and the im­po­si­tion.” He lifted their still-in­ter­twined hands to brush a kiss over her knuck­les. The moist whis­per of his breath and the pres­sure of his lips on her skin flung a sparkle of de­light up her arm.

Damn. She’d missed her chance to kiss a royal duke.

“You’re wel­come here any­time.” She held his gaze while she waited for him to re­lease her hand. In­stead, he held on to it as he turned back to­ward the door, bring­ing her along­side him.

He pulled open the door and stepped through, fi­nally slid­ing his fin­gers from be­tween hers. His gray eyes glinted in the light from her hall­way. “I would have liked to stay, but I’m drunk, so it would be wrong. Good night, señorita.”

Gabriel set­tled into the back of the Mer­cedes-Benz, the leather seat smooth against his palms.

“The palace, Your Ex­cel­lency?” Gas­par asked.

“Yes.”

He closed his eyes as un­sat­is­fied lust hummed through his body. The sen­sa­tion was not un­pleas­ant, and he worked to fan it into a dis­tract­ing flame.

He had wanted to take Quinn to bed, to draw the sug­ary cit­rus scent of her deep into his lungs, to taste her mouth and her arousal, to for­get him­self in the slow, thor­ough ex­plo­ration of her tempt­ingly curvy body. But the de­ci­sion should be made when both of them were fully aware and present, not when his brain was al­co­hol-fogged.

On top of that, she worked for Mikel, and she was as­signed to Gabriel’s case. He couldn’t be sure if the sex would come out of pity for what he’d been through, or if she might even be­lieve she was ob­li­gated to sleep with him be­cause of his power in her world. He didn’t think she would do it just be­cause he was rich or royal since she seemed more put off by that than im­pressed.

How­ever, she felt the at­trac­tion be­tween them too. When she’d leaned into him, her small, warm hand rest­ing over his heart, he’d nearly given in to the temp­ta­tion of her pil­lowy bot­tom lip and smooth, ivory skin, his fin­gers itch­ing to skim up un­der her shirt.

What color would her nip­ples be? Pale or dark? He in­dulged him­self in imag­in­ing the un­der­curves of her breasts rest­ing in his palms while his thumbs played over which­ever color the sen­si­tive, pointed tips re­vealed them­selves to be. His cock hard­ened.

He tried to plunge deeper into his fan­tasy, but even imag­ined sex couldn’t shut down the words weav­ing them­selves through his brain.

Maybe you should get a sec­ond opin­ion.

Maybe it’s a trick your brain is play­ing on you due to the trauma.

Maybe hear­ing dif­fer­ently isn’t a bad thing.

He didn’t need this when he had fi­nally made the de­ci­sion to throw him­self into work­ing for his un­cle. He groaned and slammed his hands against the sides of his head as he tried to stop the echoes of Quinn’s voice.

“Are you all right, Your Ex­cel­lency? Do you need to stop?” Gas­par’s voice was tight with con­cern.

“No, I’m fine. I won’t vomit in the car, I prom­ise.” Not that any­one would com­plain. They would clean up his mess as though it had never ex­isted. Just like they’d han­dled his ducal du­ties while he’d played the gui­tar.

“Very good,” Gas­par said as he steered around the bends of the coast road that climbed to the palace on its high cliff. They were above San Ig­na­cio now, the city lights a spray of bril­liance bounded on one side by the sud­den dark­ness of the sea.

No mat­ter how he tried to re­turn to his wet dream of Quinn, Gabriel couldn’t sub­merge the un­wel­come buoy­ancy her words had evoked. He tried to push it away, but in the dark re­cesses of his brain now lurked a ter­ri­ble mon­ster that could rip his heart out again.

Hope.

Chap­ter 11

“Where’s Mikel?” Quinn asked Emilia as she came out of her boss’s empty of­fice the next morn­ing. “Is Ser­ena all right?”

“Ser­ena is fine, just rest­ing.” Emilia lifted her chin. “El jefe was called to the palace this morn­ing.”

Quinn pressed her lips to­gether to hold back a curse. She wanted to get her con­fes­sion over and done with be­fore Mikel thought she was hid­ing some­thing about ei­ther Pete or Gabriel. Of course, he prob­a­bly al­ready knew about Gabriel’s visit since she was pretty sure he got a re­port on all the move­ments of the royal fam­ily. Still, she ad­hered to a pol­icy of to­tal trans­parency with her boss. She didn’t want any­thing to screw up this job.

She re­turned to her of­fice and ac­cessed the data­base of trav­el­ers into and out of Cal­eva, one of the many perks of work­ing for Mikel. She blew out a sigh of re­lief when she saw her un­cle’s name on the pas­sen­ger list for a flight leav­ing that af­ter­noon. As­sum­ing he boarded—which she would con­firm later—he had kept his word to her. She had set up the trans­fer of funds to him be­fore she’d come to work, so the shadow of her past would be lifted from her new life.

Un­til her past caught up with her again.

---