Page 127 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“Once you meet Tante Odette, you’ll un­der­stand how wrong you are,” Gabriel said.

Ex­cept the king him­self had agreed to their plan more eas­ily than Mikel had ex­pected. Luis knew Odette in­ti­mately, and he had to be a sharp judge of char­ac­ter.

Quinn let her gaze trace the aris­to­cratic planes of Gabriel’s cheek and jaw. He be­lieved the best of Odette be­cause he had grown up with peo­ple who de­fined their lives with honor, in­tegrity, and duty, peo­ple who thought be­yond them­selves or even their fam­ily to the good of their coun­try. He had ex­pe­ri­enced how aw­ful hu­man be­ings could be to one an­other, yet it hadn’t changed his view of his world.

Quinn had grown up among crim­i­nals. Her de­fault was to dis­trust ev­ery­one’s mo­tives. She knew how twisted a soul could be be­hind a dis­arm­ing façade. Even a fa­ther could not be counted on.

Es­pe­cially a fa­ther.

Gabriel opened his fin­gers to let go of her hand, but she held on to him, try­ing to bridge the abyss yawn­ing be­tween them.

“Gabri, the most suc­cess­ful se­rial killers are nice guys. Charm­ing, even. If they showed us the hor­ror liv­ing in­side them, we would lock them up be­fore they could mur­der any­one.”

He nod­ded, but a shadow dark­ened his eyes. “Your work takes you to ugly places, car­iño mío. Thank you for mak­ing that sac­ri­fice.”

Her life had taken her to ugly places.

“It gives me sat­is­fac­tion to catch bad peo­ple.” And it had brought her here, her hand wrapped in the warmth and strength of his grip.

It had also brought her to Mikel, who had given her a sec­ond chance. To the king, who scared the be­je­sus out of her, but whom she ad­mired. To Raul, who hated that Gabriel had been hurt in his stead and who would be a wor­thy suc­ces­sor to his fa­ther.

Maybe her world view was darker than it needed to be.

Chap­ter 30

The next morn­ing, Quinn stood un­der a cas­cade of hot wa­ter in her shower, try­ing to loosen her knot­ted mus­cles. The weather re­port promised sun­shine and smooth fly­ing all the way to New York City. She al­most wished for a hur­ri­cane.

Last night, she and Gabriel had fought one last bat­tle over post­pon­ing the trip. He had re­fused, just as she had re­fused to stay in Cal­eva while he faced the judg­ment of Marisela Alejo.

She wasn’t sure who was more stressed about this trip, Gabriel or her.

All his wak­ing hours had been con­sumed with prac­tic­ing the gui­tar un­til his cal­luses had cal­luses. There was one deep slice on his fin­ger that she had care­fully ban­daged ev­ery night, only to have Gabriel tear off her hand­i­work the next day.

Then she’d had to add to the pres­sure by telling him about Odette Fontaine.

The only pos­i­tive about the last few days had been the wild, fiery sex. She knew Gabriel was us­ing it to block out his fears. If it gave him some respite or com­fort, she was good with that. Not to men­tion that the or­gasms were spec­tac­u­lar.

She twisted the shower con­trol to off and scrubbed her­self dry with a towel.

When she walked out of the bath­room, Gabriel sat on the side of the bed, naked, his gaze fixed blankly on the wall in front of him. His el­bows rested on his thighs, and his hands hung be­tween his knees.

For a mo­ment, she let her gaze linger on the curves and ridges of the mus­cles in his shoul­ders and arms, the sculpted power of his thighs and calves, and the ex­panse of glo­ri­ous, bare skin stretched over all of it. She never knew when it would be her last glimpse.

He wasn’t still, though. His fin­gers twitched in quick, con­trolled move­ments.

She’d seen this be­fore. He was re­hears­ing the mu­sic in his head, and his mus­cles re­sponded with­out him be­ing aware of it.

“Let your poor hands rest,” she said, walk­ing up to him and cradling his head against her towel-wrapped chest. “You can prac­tice on the plane.”

He wound his arms around her waist and tilted his head back into her hands with a tired smile. “I was wait­ing for the bath­room to be free. Might as well use my time con­struc­tively.”

“You could have joined me in the shower.”

His hands slid down to squeeze her butt. “I con­sid­ered it, but I thought you might need a break from my…en­thu­si­asm.”

“Is that what you call it?” She bent to give him a lin­ger­ing kiss, thread­ing her fin­gers through his hair to feel the silk of it. “I never need a break from you.”

The taut an­gle of his jaw re­laxed slightly, giv­ing her the heady sense of hav­ing the power to help him.

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