“What?” Javier whispered harshly.
“Nothing… what?” Sebastián answered sleepily, then resumed the low steady inhale and exhale of deep sleep.
Just as he was about to turn away from the intoxicating vision of his little bound runaway, Javier was once again entranced. She was obviously enjoying whatever was happening in that active imagination of hers, because those tempting lips pulled back to reveal strong white teeth that bit down on the rope at her wrists, which were tucked close to her face to act as a makeshift pillow. When her lips wrapped around her teeth and touched the rope, she gave a sucking little moan of satisfaction. Javier’s cock went so hard, so fast, he worried it might break.
He watched in wretched delight as her hips moved several times in a tentative back-and-forth motion beneath the coarse army-issue blanket. Her lips dragged back and forth across the soft rope, as if in slow motion. Before he realized what was happening, she bit into the rope again with a satisfied groan and sucked with more urgency, her indrawn cheeks tensing with the effort. The rope at her lips muffled the tiny, high-pitched voice she gave to her pleasure, then her mouth opened wider and she gasped with the final pulse of her release.
Her hips settled back into stillness and she unconsciously curled her knees up tight near her chin. Then, damn her, she smiled a tiny, gratified, blissfully sleepy smile and rubbed her cheek against the rope as if it were the finest silk or the most elegant kid glove. Her exhale was a breath of innocent completion, followed by the renewal of her steady deep-sleep breathing.
Javier had lost his control somewhere between the first tilt of her hips and the sight of her teeth digging into the ropes he had tied with his own hands. He wanted to feel those teeth on his fingers, digging into the tendons of his neck, scraping along the length of his cock with those pretty hands tied beautifully at the base of her bare back.
He groaned in frustration and rolled over, quickly using his handkerchief to reach into his trousers to wipe away the evidence of his furtive midnight observations. He had to get rid of her quickly.
***
Isabella’s internal clock went off a few minutes before four in the morning as it always did from years of adhering to the strict schedule of the convent. Vigils at four, Lauds at dawn, Terce at nine, Sext at noon, None at three, Vespers at sunset, and Compline, the night prayer, before sleep took her. She lay there on the cold forest floor and let her eyes adjust to the predawn darkness. The fire still burned slightly, but more of a pale gray pile with hints of pink and orange than actual flames.
She started to reach for her face, to scratch an itch at her temple, when she remembered her wrists were bound and she was a prisoner. Isabella tried to collect her wits. She could try to escape, but what was the point? These men had not sent her back in the direction of her father, not right away at least. She had come upon them, after all. Perhaps they might help her. They seemed to be heading in the same direction, and at quite an admirable pace, some rational part of her brain pointed out.
Her stomach gave a pathetic groan and she dismissed it. Isabella had planned her rations with deliberate precision and she was not allowed to eat anything until dawn. Nor was she going anywhere the way that bastard had tied her wrists and ankles; of that, she was certain. During the night, she had dreamt that she had tried to gnaw her way out of the restraints, but…
She closed her eyes and let the feelings wash over her. Ah, yes. But.
Rather than being afraid or angry about the confinement, some strange and devilish part of her dreaming mind had pictured hands—his hands—slowly untying the complex knots, touching the tender skin of her wrists as he taunted her with the unhurried pleasure he took in controlling her release. That strange part of her had wanted to devour those hands, those strong fingers. She had wanted those hands on her body.
Those hands would know how to satisfy her, to make her feel right, to make those fires inside her burn. Isabella had spent her whole life being made to feel that she needed to curb her instincts. If you are hungry, do not eat. If you are thirsty, learn discipline. If you are eager to know about your dead mother, do not give in to morbid curiosity. And in all of those things, she had been obedient. She had even taken a certain pride in learning to master the art of controlling her impulses, repressing her whims, decrying her passions.
But in that world of dreams… she was free. In that world, her mind and her quivering, eager body were let loose. Only there, in that secret place, did she feel as though one was not just allowed to, but meant to act on impulses, to cultivate whims, and, surely, to give voice to her passions.
She was ultimately grateful that it was only in dreams, for surely such feelings and… cravings… had no place in the waking world. How could they? How would people function if they were experiencing all those… feelings? Impossible.
Years of listening to the nuns hint around all sorts of “occasions of sin” finally convinced Isabella that those biblical warnings had something to do with destroying that dream world. Those vague words of caution and stronger admonishments of pending hell, were, Isabella was almost positive, meant to disabuse all humanity of the foolish notion that such a waking bliss might ever be realized on this earth. Hubris. Damnation.
Isabella respected order. She truly did. She had even convinced herself that her current act of rebellion was an adherence to a higher order, one that she felt had been desecrated by misinterpretations of God’s will for her. She opened her eyes and tried to see the rope that was only inches from her eyes.
By the light of the fire the previous night, Isabella had found herself admiring—reluctantly—the intricate work of the ropes. Words like meticulous and adept floated through her mind when she tested the firm pressure. As she fell asleep, the secure hold of the bindings took on a protective feeling; the trio of narrow ropes followed the subtle contours of her bone and muscle, holding her close. Maybe the leader of this small foray was a sailor and that accounted for his obvious skill with knots. Her friend Anna would have lowered her voice to a provocative pitch and declared him a pirate.
It was not entirely far-fetched. The three men were heading straight into Portugal, and if Isabella’s instincts were correct, they were on their way to the nearest harbor. Aveiro.
After a few minutes of lying perfectly still, Isabella sensed that someone else nearby was awake. There had not been a sound, but something in the air around the fire had altered slightly. She got herself to a sitting position with a bit of awkward maneuvering. The string at the neck of her dress had come loose while she slept and she could not twist her hands enough to remedy it.
Of course it would be the arrogant bastard of a devil who woke first. Why could he not be a lazy useless excuse of a man and sleep later than the others? Now they were alone while the other two continued to sleep.
Isabella watched as he circled the small area around the fire and came to stand in front of her. What would he do now? Kick her while she sat there, hunched around herself in her drab ill-fitting dress? She was about to hang her head, to let him think he was in charge, the way her father had taught her to behave around men, and then her anger got the best of her. Her head flew up to face him squarely and she challenged him outright. “Go ahead and kick me, if that is what you intend to do.”
He stared at her for a long time, narrowing his dark, penetrating eyes as he assessed her. She felt those near-black eyes boring into her deepest places, but she refused to look away. She had nothing to be ashamed of. She was not the one who had tied someone up and tossed a rough blanket in her face last night.
He reached down to help her. “Stand.”
She had always considered herself a hearty girl, not easily blown over in a strong wind, as the abbess had said. But when that man pulled her so easily into a standing position, she had a feeling of near weightlessness. It threw her off balance and she stumbled on the uneven ground.
Her wrists and ankles were not numb, but they
felt awkward and out of use. She lost her footing and, not having her arms to break her fall, she brought her bound wrists up quickly to at least protect her face. At first, Isabella mistook the hard wall of flesh for the rough terrain at her feet.
But he did not let go.
“I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot,” he whispered, hot and close to her face.
She knew she was supposed to push away from him, but she had spent a cold, hard night down there on the ground and he felt firm and warm and strong.
“Please allow me to introduce myself properly in the absence of a mutual acquaintance to do me the honor.”
He was speaking in the highest courtly language. She was like a marionette in her oft-practiced response, her chin dipping slightly to let him know she had heard, her gaze, though slightly downcast, straining to see him through her thick, long lashes. “I would be very pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.”
She did not want to let go of him. So she did.
“My name is Javier Lerrea.” He had been using his mother’s family name for quite some time, to distance his sisters and parents from his secret revolutionary life.
She had stepped a pace away from him, but he kept her wrists in his hands, his thumb trailing along the even lines of the ropes there.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Señor Lerrea. My name is…Sol.” She hesitated ever so slightly, but she was sure he caught her out. “Sol… that’s my name,” she added in a hesitant tone that sounded too much like she was introducing herself to herself for the first time.
He raised one eyebrow and was not able to repress the hint of a smile. And what that smile did to his face was beyond anything Isabella could have imagined. He became something beautiful. Her stomach went into a desperate tumble of gripping and rolling. She pulled her tied wrists closer to her chest, as if she could protect herself from the wave of emotion that was rising through her core. The motion only managed to increase her fluttering anxiety, since his strong hands were still gently holding hers.
“Sol, is it?”
She nodded and set her mouth in a firm line to avoid any telltale licking of her lips or biting of her tongue that might alert him to her lie.
“Yes. Soledad… but everyone has always called me Sol.”
“Just Sol. No last name?”
Then she forgot all about strong hands and roiling stomachs and the hard walls of masculine flesh still warm from sleep and she got irritated. She shook his hands off her and stepped another pace back. “Sir, I am certainly not going to reveal my true identity to”—she tossed her chin—“the likes of you.”
His beautiful smile vanished. She was sad to see it go, but someone needed to give this man a lesson or two. Perhaps he suffered from a lack of proper education. She was momentarily distracted thinking she might exercise a bit of pity on the poor man who had to make his way in life traipsing through the forests between Spain and Portugal. Maybe he was a smuggler? Again, Anna would have reveled in those fanciful thoughts far more than Isabella ever would.
He was asking her a question about which direction she was traveling and she had to ask him to repeat it. He moved in closer and said the words a bit slower. Again, like his hands, the movement of his lips was very, very distracting. Why did he insist on standing so close to her and speaking in such a vexing manner?
She answered him with a clipped formality. Of course she was heading to Aveiro, she informed him, sharing her suspicion that he was headed in the same direction.
“Aha!” he cried, his booming voice startling a covey of small birds, as well as his two sleeping friends.
“What have you discovered, sir?” Isabella asked with feigned interest.
“You answered me in Latin, you impostor!” he crowed.
She tried to fight the rush of crimson heat that spread up her chest and neck. “So… why can’t my name be Sol and why can’t I have a passing knowledge of Latin?”
He waved his hands—those strong hands from her dreams… Must he flaunt them about like that, right in my face? she wondered—and his smile returned. “You may! You may!” He was happy about something or another.
He turned to the other two men. “Sebastián de Montizón and Marco Delgado, please allow me to present… Sol.” He turned back to face her when he said her name, to watch her reaction as he curved his lips around the simple syllable. The other two were still across the small camp, and he leaned in and whispered, “I suspect Sol is your lady-in-waiting.” Then he pulled away quickly, bent to pick up the blanket he had given her last night, and finished with the introductions. The two men now stood a few feet in front of her, looking surprisingly rested and ready for the day despite having woken up a few moments ago from a night spent on the bare ground. “Sol… it is my pleasure to introduce Sebastián de Montizón and Marco Delgado.”
Both men bowed with formal precision, one leg cast in front of them and one hand extended as they bent elegantly forward. The taller one, de Montizón, looked familiar and his name was one from her great-grandmother’s side of the family, though not totally uncommon. Isabella avoided his gaze. The shorter one seemed safer. Unfortunately, the one named Sebastián was not going to be put off that easily. She set her shoulders back as best she could, seeing as the devil had still not seen fit to untie her.
“Señora… or señorita?”
“Señora!” Too loud, she chided herself. “Yes, I am married.”
All three men looked at her pale hand, conspicuously free of any jewelry.
“Oh.” She lifted up the ropy bundle that was now feeling like a permanent nest for her hands. “Oh, well of course I did not think it wise to wear any jewelry while I was escaping through the forest. What if I came upon bandits? Or worse?”
Javier burst out laughing at the prospect. “Yes! What if?” He continued laughing as he began breaking down their camp, dousing the fire, covering the evidence of their stay as best he could. Marco and Sebastián resaddled the horses and packed up the other supplies. Everyone had a job and performed it with the efficiency borne of familiarity. Who are these odd men, Isabella wondered, who sleep on the bare earth and awake rested, like those Apaches I’ve read about who fought those vicious raids against the innocent Spanish settlers in the New World? Men of the earth. Savages.
But Sebastián, Marco, and Javier had obviously been educated in a noble tradition, instructed in classics, history, philosophy. Isabella suspected that at least two of them were noblemen in their own right, raised in a world of luxury and ease similar to the one she would have known if she had gone to meet her original fate yesterday. The vision of Javier sleeping on the forest floor was immediately replaced with the mental image of him sprawled lazily across one of the massive tester beds in an elegant guest room at the castle in Feria. In her mind’s eye, he was half-asleep and naked. He looked up from tying his saddlebag at that very moment and Isabella shook herself briskly and tried to rein in her wild imaginings.
Once the camp was neatly dismantled and all three horses were fed, watered, and ready to move on, Javier took one last look to make sure they had not left so much as a stray button. Finally, his look landed on Isabella. He stared at her in that devilishly invasive way of his.
“So. Sol…”
“Yes.”
He waited her out. She finally burst like a flood. “See here. I can cook, and I promise I shan’t talk too much—I’ve been told men despise that—and I shan’t expect your protection or any other contrivance. I have my own… effects… and am perfectly capable of making my way to Aveiro on my own, but if you happen to be headed that way as well, it would make the time pass more quickly and I’m sure my horse would appreciate the company—”
“Are you asking to travel unchaperoned with three gentlemen not of your acquaintance?”
She hated him in that moment, for sounding so much like her father. She wanted to holler. Then she becam
e resolute. “Fine. If you are going to allow traditional rules of behavior to prevent me from traveling with you, at the very least, will you untie these ropes so I may proceed of my own accord?”
“I never said we were going to travel without you,” Javier said as he approached her. “I was genuinely asking to make sure I had heard correctly.” He nodded to the other men to get on their horses. “Go get her mare saddled and bring her here.”
How did he know she had a mare? He was far too pleased with himself. And now they were alone again. He walked closer to her. Isabella looked toward the forest in the direction Sebastián and Marco had headed, then quickly back at Javier. He was too close again.
“Your hands,” he commanded.
She held out her wrists for him to free her and she gasped when she realized the motion pushed her breasts together and nearly out of her still-untied rag of a dress. Only one day had passed and already she missed the protective confinement of fine silk and cool, pressed linen against her skin.
He began to untie the fine compilation of ropes, and within seconds had the whole length loose and sliding from her body. It turned out it was one single piece of narrow rope, and it slipped from behind Isabella’s neck and back with an exhilarating swishing sound. “How did you—?”
Javier shrugged and Isabella had that pang of dreamy longing again. He looked boyish and… delicious.
“I grew up around horses,” he said. “I loved learning about knots and bridles and netting and that sort of thing.”
She could tell he was embarrassed for some reason, though she could not see why. Horsemanship and the attendant skills required to master it had been an honored component of every aristocrat’s education for centuries. Perhaps one of his parents had belittled his interest. She wanted to encourage him. She reached out and touched his upper arm. He was wearing a white shirt, open at the neck, and a deep, midnight blue riding jacket of the softest silk. She had not realized how elegantly dressed he was until that moment. What with being held hostage and all, her mind had been elsewhere.
Megan Mulry Page 3