Page 62 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

He laughed and picked up the pace. She had to skip a lit­tle to keep up with his long stride. Did that mean he was ea­ger to play for her or that he was ea­ger to get it over with?

“And here we are.” He swung open an an­cient-look­ing oak door.

“Now this looks like a cas­tle,” she breathed as she scanned the oc­tag­o­nal room with its blocky stone walls and smooth-worn stone floor. Mul­lioned win­dows were set into the three-foot-thick walls, and the ceil­ing was a star­burst of rough-hewn wooden beams. “I can pic­ture Ra­pun­zel hang­ing her hair out the win­dow or Sleep­ing Beauty prick­ing her fin­ger on the spin­ning wheel here.”

“Or a trou­ba­dour play­ing pas­sion­ate mu­sic for his lady?” Gabriel lifted their linked hands to brush his lips over her knuck­les.

De­li­cious tin­gles shiv­ered through her. “Or that.”

For a mo­ment, their gazes locked, his gray eyes smoky. Then he re­leased her hand and turned away, strid­ing over to pull one gui­tar case from among the five stand­ing along the wall.

She no­ticed a cou­ple of fenc­ing foils and masks rest­ing on the floor near the gui­tars. “Do you fight du­els in here too?”

“What? Oh, the foils. Raul feels I don’t take enough breaks, so he pesters me into fenc­ing with him.”

What she wouldn’t give to see those two gor­geous, pow­er­ful men cross­ing swords. Just the thought of it sent a surge of heat through her. “Who usu­ally wins?”

“Who­ever has the most frus­tra­tion to work off.” Gabriel placed the gui­tar case on the floor by a plain wooden stool and un­latched it. “I hate to ad­mit it, but Raul is a bet­ter fencer than I am. And the king is un­beat­able.”

“I’ll bet he’s in­tense.”

“Mur­der­ous, in fact.” But he said it with a smile.

Quinn laughed.

“Please.” Gabriel swept his hand to­ward a carved wooden chair with a green vel­vet cush­ion set about six feet away from his stool. He un­but­toned the cuff of his wine red shirt and be­gan to roll it up to his el­bow.

She eyed the or­nately carved drag­ons whose heads formed the chair’s han­drests. It re­minded her of the an­tiques in Mikel’s of­fice. “Those carv­ings look frag­ile. How old is this chair?”

“I have no idea, but if Raul hasn’t dam­aged it, you won’t. He dragged it in here so he would have some­place com­fort­able to sit af­ter our fenc­ing matches.”

Quinn sank onto the cush­ion and wrapped her fin­gers over the dragon heads. Gabriel rolled up his other sleeve be­fore he perched on the stool. Lift­ing the gui­tar out of its case, he crossed his legs so his right an­kle rested on his left thigh.

The pose pulled his char­coal trousers tight over his thighs, riv­et­ing her at­ten­tion on the swells of the long mus­cles. An­other wave of heat hit her, and she could feel the flush in her cheeks.

She jerked her eyes up to his face as he tuned the gui­tar rest­ing on his leg, his gaze vague and in­ward while his at­ten­tion fo­cused on sound rather than sight.

His fin­gers stilled, and he met her eyes for a long mo­ment that was charged with hope, de­ter­mi­na­tion, and what might be de­sire. Then he closed his eyes and ripped the first notes from the gui­tar.

The long fin­gers of his left hand skit­tered along the frets like a spi­der while his right hand whirred over the strings with the blurred speed of a hum­ming­bird’s wings. Some­times he used only two fin­gers, some­times his whole hand splayed out like a fan, and some­times he used the gui­tar as a per­cus­sion in­stru­ment, strik­ing it in a driv­ing rhythm.

First, he wrapped his body around the gui­tar, and then he flung his shoul­ders and head back, his left foot in its glossy black loafer al­ways, al­ways tap­ping on the stone floor like a metronome.

The mu­sic seemed to take over her heart­beat, slow­ing it to a breath­less stand­still be­fore whip­ping it into a frenzy of stac­cato throbs. She closed her eyes to bathe in the glo­ri­ous, pas­sion­ate sound, sway­ing in the cur­rents it swirled around her. Her fin­gers drummed on the dragon heads when the tempo grew rapid and held on for dear life when it slowed to a plain­tive wail.

Time be­came en­twined with the mu­sic, mov­ing at dif­fer­ent speeds that Gabriel’s fin­gers con­trolled un­til sud­denly, there was si­lence. No, not quite si­lence, but a faint sound of surf pound­ing against rocks un­der­pinned by the rasp of Gabriel’s breath­ing.

Quinn opened her eyes to find him watch­ing her, his fore­head beaded with per­spi­ra­tion, his chest ris­ing and fall­ing as though he’d sprinted up sev­eral flights of stairs.

His face held an ur­gent ques­tion that she had no words to an­swer. Only feel­ings spin­ning in­side her like a cy­clone.

She stood and walked over to him. Thread­ing her fin­gers into his sweat-damp­ened hair, she tilted his face up and brought her mouth down on his, pour­ing out all the in­choate emo­tions into the press of skin to firm, sculpted skin.

His hands came up to hold her head as he slanted his mouth against hers, the tip of his tongue trac­ing and teas­ing. She opened to him so their tongues could dance to the lin­ger­ing echoes of the mu­sic.

She whim­pered when he pulled away, say­ing, “Un mo­mento,” and slid­ing the gui­tar out from be­tween them to place it in its case. Then he was on his feet, his arms wrapped around her so that she was pinned against him from shoul­der to thigh. She ran her palms up to set­tle around his neck be­fore their lips met again.

She in­haled the aroma of berg­amot and ex­er­tion that en­veloped her, rubbed her hard­ened nip­ples against the wall of his chest, and gasped when he broke the kiss to lick the spot just be­hind her ear­lobe.

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