Page 66 of Gabriela and His Grace

Heaving a breath, Gabby would have jerked from Whitfield’s embrace if he had allowed her. But his arms kept her close, and she hid her face against his neck.

“It’s quite…pleasant,” she finally mumbled, pleased her voice contained none of the anxieties pulsing through her.

“Pleasant? Surely it’s better than pleasant. It’s Mexican soap, after all.”

Gabby rapped her fist against his chest before she could think better of it. “If I had known it was Mexican soap, I would have been more effusive with my praise.”

“You know I covet your praise,” he teased.

“Until recently, I had no notion you did.” Gabby angled back to see his face. “You’ve never acted as if you desired it.”

Whitfield slowly raised a brow. “Come now, Ella dear, surely you know that a man of my prodigious ego is always hungry for a beautiful woman’s praise.”

Her cheeks heated, and Gabby prayed the duke could not tell. That telltale sign alone would make him insufferable. “I’m sure you’ve never wanted for praise.”

The duke dragged the hand wrapped around her back to her chin, and he smoothed his thumb along her jawbone. “And yet I wanted your good opinion, Ella.”

This was the Duke of Whitfield at his most powerful. Not when he lounged in his club, a glass of whisky dangling from his long fingers, surrounded by sycophants, or when he commanded the attention of a ballroom simply by stepping into it. Rather it was when he focused his blue eyes on you, murmured a dry quip, and smirked while he watched you melt. Even now, molten heat coalesced low in her core.

But Gabby had always prided herself on not being swayed by pretty words from a pretty face, and she was not about to fall prey now.

Meeting his gaze, she tsked. “Whitfield, why do you deserve my praise?”

“It’s Sebastian,” he said, his voice gravelly and clipped, “and it seems I should remind you of what I’m capable of.”

And after searching her eyes for a heartbeat, he lowered his head and kissed her.

Gabby shivered as white-hot sparks of desire licked up her spine. “Sebastian,” she sighed.

Faith, but his name tasted delicious on her tongue. Gabby twined an arm around his back and sank her nails into his skin.

He smiled against her lips. “Christ, darling, that is the best compliment I’ve ever received. Shall I give you more reasons to sigh my name?”

Sucking his bottom lip into her mouth, Gabby nibbled on it. “I’m willing to see if the whispers I’ve heard are true.”

Whitfield—Sebastian—shifted, until he loomed over her, his pelvis nestled in the valley between her legs. Her nightdress had hitched about her thighs, and suddenly Sebastian’s warm palm slid under the hem, his thumb smoothing across her skin and leaving tingles in its wake. Gabby had never been in such an intimate position before but she wasn’t afraid. Wasn’t apprehensive. This was the duke, after all. The man who had verbally tangled and tussled with her for the better part of four years, who’d seen her at her worst, at her most vulnerable, and had held her in his arms while she fell apart. Staring into his glacial eyes now, Gabby finally understood that Sebastian was the only man she’d ever truly been herself with because he made her safe to do so.

In this moment, though, with her life in turmoil and her future uncertain, Gabby craved an escape. She longed to put her worries aside and simply be. Simply feel.

He must have read something in her gaze, some sort of decision she’d unconsciously made, because Sebastian dropped his head to her chest, his breath coming in pants. The gesture made her heart lodge in her throat.

“Ella love, I didn’t invite you to share this cabin with me because I expected anything”—his shoulders rose and fell on another great exhale—“physical to occur between us. I understand you’re in a precarious position, and I’m not trying to take advantage of it.”

“Perhaps I’m trying to take advantage of you.”

Sebastian pulled his head up, a sardonic tilt to his mouth. “You are ruthless, darling.”

Gabby laughed, but the sound tapered off when she spied his expression. Her arms tightened around him. “I know this situation is not a result of your machinations. You certainly weren’t encouraging my father to auction my hand off to the highest bidder.”

Dragging his knuckles along her cheek, Sebastian whispered, “I’m sorry you were made to feel that your worth was based not on who you are but on what others could gain from you.”

“A woman’s worth is always weighed by what she can give…”

The words were shaded with a bitterness she couldn’t—wouldn’t—hide.

Sebastian pressed his lips to her jaw, and surprised a laugh out of her when he nipped at it. “Darling, surely you know the thing I value most about you is your sharp tongue.”

She grinned. “Is that so?”