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“About?”
She bit her lip. She could hardly tell him that she was plotting ways to convince him to love not only her, but himself.
“You’re very good in bed,” she said, rather than telling him the exact thoughts that were on her mind. That was what her body was thinking about, anyway. “Granted, I have no one else to compare to, but I can’t imagine there are very many men who exceed your skill.”
“It isn’t about skill, Gabby.” He brushed her hair out of her face, his body still entwined with hers. “This is chemistry.”
A burst of warmth fired up in her heart, then fizzled out just as quickly. It was more than that. For her, it was so much more than that.
She would show him. She would find a way. After a lifetime spent hiding away she knew one thing for certain. After standing in the light with Alex, she would never retreat back into the shadows.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ALEX HAD CALLED himself ten kinds of villain since that first night he had taken Gabriella to bed. Of course, it had not stopped him from taking her to bed every night since. She was everything he had fantasized she might be. Beautiful, soft. And her enjoyment of study had come into play in some erotic and interesting ways he had not imagined. She was very thorough.
She had explored his body as though he were an ancient text she was attempting to pull meaning from.
No one had looked that deeply into him and his secrets in…ever. He was stone people built legend around. But no one ever looked beneath to see the man. And he’d kept it that way. For a reason. Several reasons.
He found it hard to keep Gabby at that same distance. Found it hard to even want to keep her at a distance.
She was soft and beautiful, and more generous than she should be. And he spent late nights not only exploring her body, but lying next to her, skimming his hands over her bare curves while she read passages from favorite books to him, and did her very best to educate him about art and other things he didn’t care about in the least.
But he liked hearing the words on her lips. Enjoyed the way they poured over him like warm honey, soothing him in a soul-deep way he hadn’t imagined possible. Mostly because it was easy to imagine he didn’t have a soul.
Because a man who had kept his own half brother a secret, who shared the blood of the most selfish, pleasure-seeking bastard on earth, could hardly have regular human emotions. Could hardly feel softness, tenderness, for a beautiful woman he had nothing in common with.
Could hardly be soothed to a soul he didn’t have.
But with Gabby things felt different. Possible. Ridiculous, since he was a billionaire and everything was possible. He could have small mammals on jet packs delivered by noon if he wanted. One princess shouldn’t make anything feel more possible.
Still, it was the word that came to mind, whether it made sense or not. Well, there were other words, but none of them were appropriate.
He hadn’t ever cared about anything like that before, but with her he did. He couldn’t afford to care, and he needed to get back to work. But until he dealt with his grandfather, the painting and his family, he couldn’t.
Fortunately, they were meeting today. Gabriella would come with him; she would be part of passing the painting to his grandfather, as her grandmother had asked. And then she would go home.
The thought shouldn’t make it feel like a knife’s blade had been slipped beneath his skin and twisted.
“Hi, Alex,” she said, coming out of his bedroom right then, dressed in nothing but a T-shirt. His T-shirt. And what would have been cliché on another woman was new on her. As though he’d never before seen it. As though no woman had ever slipped her lover’s T-shirt on over her luscious curves after an evening of passion.
Gabby was an original no matter what she did. Perhaps because she was his, and only his. Because no other man had touched her, no other man had kissed her. He’d never been with a virgin before. Maybe he was just archaic enough for it to matter.
He hadn’t thought he was. But then, he hadn’t thought he had a soul, either.
“Good morning, Gabriella,” he said, lifting his coffee mug to his lips.
“So, we meet with your family today?” she asked, her dark eyes liquid, hopeful for some reason. Perhaps she was ready to be rid of him. Ready to go back to Aceena.
But last night she had not sounded like a woman ready to be rid of him.
“Yes. Soon. You’ll have to get dressed in something other than that.”
She smiled, and it was a little bit wicked. On that innocent mouth that he had trained to do such sensual things, it was another Gabby original. “You mean I can’t wear this to go and meet your family?”
The way she said those words. Meeting his family. They did something to him. Grabbed hold of something down deep inside of him and twisted hard. He was torn between an intense longing and a fierce need to reject the desire.
He cleared his throat. “It would probably be best if you are wearing pants of some kind when I introduce you to my grandfather.”
