Heart's Ransom

by Sara Reinke

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  Rafe watched Kitty for any hint―a bloom of blush in her cheeks, however so slight, or a hunkering of her shoulders, a minute shift in her expression―that might suggest she was lying to him. He had vague memories of what had seemed a wine-induced delirium; that he had imagined kissing Isabel Aniceto Zuniga, only to come somewhat to his bleary, still-drunken senses to find himself poised atop Kitty, his hands and mouth against her instead.

  It seemed like memories, at least, but he had been too abashed to broach the subject with her. At first, he had taken her unusual silence, her atypical complacency that morning as a sure indication that it had really happened. Mother of God, what have I done? he thought in dismay, as they had first sat down to breakfast together. I have broken my word that I wouldn’t show her any discourtesy, that she would be safe from harm with me. I have terrorized her.

  But then she had told him he had not. She had spoken with such nonchalance and seeming honesty, he was completely befuddled. Had nothing happened, after all? Had it been just a dream? Why would Kitty lie to him, if it had not been?

  She would not, he told himself, watching her mouth, her lips pursed together as she chewed a large bite of orange. If I had touched her―if what I had imagined had really happened, she would be railing me right now, and probably swinging at me, too. She would be tearing into me like a dog on a ham bone.

  His head hurt, but nowhere near as badly as he deserved, considering the amount of wine he had downed the day before. He felt badly that Kitty had seen him in such a state. What she must think of me, he thought. He had told her it wouldn’t happen again, and he meant it. No more wine, at least until we reach La Coruna and I get these chains off of us. God only knows what might happen otherwise.

  Dream or not, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Rafe had known it was not Isabel he kissed or caressed last night. He had touched Isabel enough to have memorized every generous curve and voluptuous contour on her petite form. The woman he had imagined exploring with his mouth and hands the night before had been far too long and much too lean to have been Isabel. He had dreamed of Kitty; of her long legs pressed against him, her modest but shapely breasts beneath his hands, the caps of her nipples hardening at the gentle prodding of his fingertips. It had not been Isabel’s full mouth he had imagined kissing, but Kitty’s. In his dream, it had not been the promise of making love to Isabel that had stoked a ferocious heat within him, stirring him to a maddeningly acute arousal. He had wanted to make love to Kitty.

  Madness, he thought at the breakfast table. Mad, mad, mad. But even as he chastised himself in his mind, he could not help but let his eyes travel down the slope of Kitty’s throat and to the inner sideswell of her left breast, just visible in a tantalizing peek through the V-shaped opening at the collar of her shirt. He felt himself hardening at this glimpse, and remembered a fragment of his dream that had not yet occurred to him―Kitty touching him, closing her hand with firm promise against him and moving against him with exquisite, excruciating friction.

  Mad, mad, mad, he thought again, forcing the thought from his mind. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingertips and shifted his weight in his seat, readjusting himself and trying to discourage the swelling that suddenly tugged the crotch of his breeches out of comfortable place. As if Kitty would ever let me make love to her, he thought, a rueful hook turning up the corner of his mouth. She would as soon scratch my eyes out.