Page 71 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“No.” His an­swer had the snap of el duque in it.

“Okay. I think you should talk about it. It clearly both­ered you.”

His head snapped up. “Stop ask­ing about my fuck­ing feel­ings. My un­cle cod­dled me af­ter the kid­nap­ping, and all that did was slow down Mikel’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion. I want it fin­ished. I want those bas­tards found and pun­ished so I can put it all be­hind me.”

“I agree with ev­ery­thing you just said. That doesn’t mean you can’t also ad­dress how those masks made you feel. It’s healthy to con­front it.”

“It just drags me through the same rut over and over again. There’s no pur­pose.”

“The pur­pose is to help you deal with it from a new per­spec­tive. Be­cause you have changed and grown.”

“You sound like the fuck­ing ther­a­pist,” he snarled. “I don’t have time for this right now. I need to fo­cus on my mu­sic.”

“Can you make your best mu­sic when you’re up­set?” She knew she was tread­ing on thin ice.

“I am not up­set.” He sounded as though he spoke through a clenched jaw. “I am an­gry. A cold, vi­o­lent anger.”

“Anger is cor­ro­sive,” Quinn said with a con­vic­tion born from the ex­pe­ri­ence of deal­ing with her fa­ther. “You need to get rid of it be­fore it ru­ins you.”

“I will chan­nel it into my mu­sic. Do not push me for more.”

He had re­treated into his duke per­sona, proud and con­trolled.

“Should I take you back to the palace?” She re­al­ized she had headed for her home with­out think­ing.

“If you would pre­fer that.” All the anger was gone from his voice, and ex­haus­tion had taken its place.

She pulled into an empty park­ing space a block away from her house but kept the en­gine run­ning. “I want to do what­ever will help you the most.”

“I want not to think about it. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes,” Quinn said, turn­ing off the en­gine. “I know ex­actly how to make that hap­pen.”

Chap­ter 19

As they walked down the street to her house, she in­ter­laced her fin­gers with Gabriel’s. He looked down as though sur­prised be­fore he lifted her hand to brush a kiss over it. “Gra­cias, car­iño mío.”

His stride length­ened so that she al­most had to jog to keep up. He hus­tled her up the steps to her front door and loomed im­pa­tiently while she palmed open the door and de­ac­ti­vated the alarm.

She had barely tossed the Spano’s keys on her hall ta­ble be­fore he spun her around and backed her up to the wall, his lips on hers. His body leaned hard into hers while he de­voured her mouth like a man who was starv­ing. Or maybe drown­ing.

She met him with equal pas­sion, their tongues touch­ing and part­ing, trac­ing and danc­ing. He threaded his fin­gers into her hair to an­gle her head so he could lick and nib­ble the sen­si­tive skin be­hind her ear. Hot tin­gles spread across her skin to tighten her nip­ples where they pushed against his chest. When he slid his hands down to cup her bot­tom to pull her up against his erec­tion, she nearly came.

“The kitchen counter,” she gasped. “I need you in­side me.”

His gaze skimmed over her face like a touch. “This won’t be slow and sen­sual.”

“We can do that later.” Brac­ing her hands on his broad shoul­ders, she gave a lit­tle hop, and he caught her as she wrapped her legs around his hips. His erec­tion hit her clit like a bolt of light­ning, and she arched back­ward on a gasp. “Hurry.”

The fric­tion of his move­ments as he strode to the kitchen is­land made her whim­per as she fought down her or­gasm.

He slid her care­fully onto the pol­ished basalt coun­ter­top. She ripped open the but­ton at her waist­band and yanked the zip­per down be­fore shov­ing her jeans and panties to her an­kles and kick­ing her feet free of her clothes and shoes. She wig­gled a lit­tle as the chill of the stone hit her bare skin. The con­trast with the heat flar­ing low in her body sent a de­li­cious shiver through her. “Take your shirt off.”

“Madre de Dios,” he said be­fore he did that guy thing where he reached half­way down his back and pulled the shirt off in one mo­tion, fling­ing it onto the is­land.

“God, I love your chest,” she said, run­ning her palms over the warm skin and springy hair above the lily in the tat­tooed dragon’s claw.

“And I love your breasts.” He yanked her bra straps down to bare her be­fore curv­ing his fin­gers around to rub his thumbs over the points of her nip­ples. An­other jolt of elec­tric­ity zinged down to spark be­tween her legs.

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