Page 132 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

He rolled to bring their faces just inches from each other, his gray eyes burn­ing with the will to con­vince her. “Why do you not be­lieve that you are beau­ti­ful? And bril­liant. And per­cep­tive. And so many other things that I could con­tinue for the rest of this six-hour flight with­out run­ning out of ad­jec­tives.”

Be­cause he was a duke and could have pretty much any woman he wanted. Women who had never spent time in prison. Women who didn’t have crim­i­nals for fa­thers. That was why.

“Nope, that wasn’t over-the-top at all,” she said.

He growled and rolled them again so that she lay draped on top of him. “Quinn, you are the best thing that’s hap­pened to me in a long, un­happy year.”

His words were dan­ger­ous, tempt­ing her to imag­ine that she had helped this ex­tra­or­di­nary man when no one else could. That kind of think­ing could se­duce her into be­liev­ing he ac­tu­ally needed her. She sighed, her breath ruf­fling his chest hair. “It’s just good tim­ing. You were ready to hear what I had to say.”

“Por el amor de Dios!” he swore in ex­as­per­a­tion.

The plane bounced on a blip of tur­bu­lence. “You see? You shouldn’t swear when we’re thirty thou­sand feet in the air.”

His arms tight­ened around her. “Are you all right?”

Oddly, she was. It was stupid, but she felt safe ly­ing in his em­brace. “My nerve end­ings are so fried that I can’t work up any anx­i­ety.”

He half laughed, half sighed. “I’ll have to make sure you have a cou­ple of or­gasms in the limo on the way to the air­port to­mor­row.”

The plane vi­brated through a se­ries of gen­tle bumps, but it was sooth­ing rather than ter­ri­fy­ing. “Was it do­ing this while we were hav­ing sex?” If so, she hadn’t no­ticed.

“No idea. I was fo­cused on more im­por­tant mat­ters.” She felt his lips on the top of her head.

Her eye­lids be­gan to drift closed while her body melted over Gabriel’s like sugar glaze on a freshly baked cake. He was so warm and solid and strong. One of his arms was wrapped around her shoul­ders, while his other lay across her hips, his hand lightly cup­ping her but­tock. She wanted to stay like this for­ever, glid­ing above the world and all its hard-edged re­al­i­ties.

The jet jolted again, mak­ing the soft folds of the blan­ket that he had tossed over the king’s coat of arms cas­cade down over them.

Gabriel laughed and flipped it over to cover her back, but Quinn tilted her head up in a silent salute to the dragon on the plaque. She got the mes­sage. The uni­verse was not go­ing to let her for­get the vast chasm be­tween them.

Chap­ter 31

Quinn gaped in dis­be­lief when the Cus­toms of­fi­cer boarded the plane af­ter they landed at Teter­boro Air­port in New Jer­sey. No stand­ing in an im­mi­gra­tion line for el duque. Of course, she would have breezed through since she was a U.S. cit­i­zen.

“Wel­come home, Ms. Pier­son,” the of­fi­cer said, hand­ing her U.S. pass­port back to her with a smile.

Home. And not home. She didn’t feel like any­where was home these days, but it would be nice to be an Amer­i­can in Amer­ica for a lit­tle while.

The of­fi­cer gave Gabriel some­thing that nearly re­sem­bled a bow as he re­turned his pass­port. “We hope you en­joy your visit here, sir.”

“Un­be­liev­able,” Quinn mut­tered once the of­fi­cer was out of earshot.

“What?” Gabriel asked.

“He bowed to you. In the USA! We fought a whole war to get rid of kings and dukes.”

The ten­sion in Gabriel’s jaw eased, and amuse­ment lit his eyes, which made Quinn happy. The closer they’d got­ten to land­ing, the more with­drawn he’d be­come. “It’s my no­ble air. Peo­ple just want to bow to me.”

Quinn glanced around to make sure no one was watch­ing be­fore she held up her mid­dle fin­ger. “That’s what your no­ble air makes me want to do.”

He laughed out­right. “And you won­der why I love you.”

It was a fig­ure of speech. She knew that, but it still made her heart twist. “For my charisma?”

“For your ut­ter dis­re­spect.” He leaned for­ward to plant a quick kiss on her lips.

Quinn didn’t want to leave the plane. She didn’t want to load up the Glock in the limo. She didn’t want to take on the re­spon­si­bil­ity of be­ing one of Gabriel’s body­guards. Most of all, she didn’t want to be racked with guilt for his pain if Marisela Alejo told him his play­ing stank.

She waved her hand to­ward the exit. “We should go. There might be traf­fic go­ing into the city.”

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