Page 48 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

The re­turn trip to the air­port was quiet. Mikel rode with Raul, while Gabriel had with­drawn into his pri­vate thoughts. Quinn was re­lieved when his hand stopped shak­ing.

Once they boarded the plane, Raul pulled Gabriel into a quick em­brace be­fore say­ing, “Are you okay, her­mano? That wasn’t easy for me. I can only imag­ine how you felt.”

Gabriel gave the prince’s shoul­der a squeeze. “I feel re­lieved that we’ve iden­ti­fied two kid­nap­pers. Thank you for your part in that.”

“I did noth­ing.” Frus­tra­tion laced Raul’s voice. “In fact, Mikel thinks I al­most blew the op­er­a­tion.”

“I did not say that,” Mikel dis­agreed. “Your in­put is in­valu­able to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

Raul shook his head. “I want to do more.”

“Pa­tience, primo,” Gabriel said. “Let Mikel and Quinn do their jobs.”

The stew­ard ap­peared. “Señores, señorita, may I re­quest that you take your seats? We have clear­ance to taxi for take­off.”

Quinn went back to the seat she’d oc­cu­pied on the flight out. As they tax­ied out of the pri­vate hangar, she made a men­tal list of where she would probe Dupont’s back­ground. Her fin­gers itched to get to her com­puter key­board to get started.

She started when she felt a pres­ence be­side her and turned to find that Gabriel had set­tled into the seat be­side her again. Be­fore she could de­cide what to say, he had tilted the seat back and closed his eyes.

She took the op­por­tu­nity to study his face—dis­creetly, since Mikel and Raul were seated not far away. In re­pose, Gabriel looked less aus­tere and duke-ish. The shad­ows that of­ten dark­ened his sil­very eyes were hid­den, and his dark hair flowed away from his tem­ple in beck­on­ing waves that made her long to comb her fin­gers through it.

That re­minded her of the kiss on the street when she’d felt the firm soft­ness of his lips, buried her fin­gers in the thick­ness of his hair, crushed her breasts against his chest, all while his strong fin­gers had traced the curve of her butt. Act­ing. Play­ing a role. Ex­cept the liq­uid heat cours­ing through her hadn’t been an act.

He had been act­ing, though. She forced her­self to stop look­ing at his lips.

De­spite the loung­ing an­gle of his seat, his pos­ture showed ten­sion. His face was pointed straight up so she could see the bold out­line of his brow, nose, and chin. His hands were clenched on the arm­rests, and his long legs were crossed stiffly at the an­kles.

He had been shak­ing af­ter his en­counter with Dupont and Ko­dra. Maybe it had been more than the rage at fi­nally be­ing face-to-face with one of the men who had held him cap­tive. Maybe rec­og­niz­ing Ko­dra had trig­gered a flash­back. Maybe now, Gabriel was strug­gling with PTSD.

Should she try to talk to him? Of­fer him the com­fort of touch again? Why did Mikel think she could help Gabriel through this?

She huffed out a sigh of in­ad­e­quacy and stared out the win­dow while her thoughts cir­cled use­lessly.

“Quinn.” His breath stirred the hair on the back of her head so she turned back care­fully. She didn’t want to be too close to that full, sen­sual mouth. His seat was up­right, and his head was an­gled to­ward her.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “I was wor­ried.”

He brushed away her con­cern with a fluid ges­ture. “I’ve de­cided to take your ad­vice.”

“Did I give you ad­vice?” She rif­fled through her mem­o­ries of their re­cent con­ver­sa­tions, com­ing up empty.

“About my mu­sic.”

“Well, I’m def­i­nitely not qual­i­fied in that de­part­ment, so I would ig­nore what­ever I said.” Then she re­mem­bered his drunken visit to her house. In fact, she’d been a lit­tle drunk then, too, now that she thought about it, or she would never have told him that maybe he could still play the gui­tar.

He lifted his dark, slash­ing eye­brows in a way that re­minded her he was a duke. “You don’t think I should get a sec­ond opin­ion?”

“Oh, that.” She pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Maybe that was good ad­vice.”

For­tu­nately, he laughed, the bari­tone melody of it rolling through her bones be­fore the amuse­ment faded from his face. “The day you first told me about Ko­dra, I was go­ing to sell my gui­tars. I thought that would help me move for­ward. But to­day, see­ing him has freed some­thing in­side me. I can feel all the prim­i­tive emo­tions I had shut down. The rage. The de­sire for him to suf­fer as I did. The sense of bit­ter­ness that he’s walk­ing around…and laugh­ing.” His eyes nar­rowed with the in­ten­sity of his pur­pose. “I want to try to put that into the mu­sic. To see if that is what was miss­ing be­fore.”

She knew noth­ing about mu­sic, so she went with bland­ness. “That sounds like a good plan.”

“It’s not a plan. It’s a flimsy, grasp­ing-at-straws last gasp of a hope.” He sat back. “I will go back to prac­tic­ing full-time.”

“And then?”

He met her gaze, so she saw the fear dark­en­ing his eyes. “I get that sec­ond opin­ion.”

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