Pirate's Ransom

Chapter 14

They laid for a few moments in silence. Isabella's mind buzzed as quickly as the wings of a hummingbird, despite her body being languid. The muscles low in her belly tensed rhythmically before they slowly died off. She knew she was still a virgin, she'd seen the stable boy and a maid in their gardens one night when she should have been in bed. What their naked bodies had done was far more than what she and Arus had done. Still, her brain told her what they'd just shared was wrong, but her heart was happy. How could she feel any kind of happiness having been intimate with a man that had taken her from her home and humiliated her at every step. 

She smiled suddenly,  remembering another time long past.

"What's the smile for?" Arus rolled to his side, propping one arm up to hold his head. 

"I..." She felt the brush of his erection against her thigh. "Um, you didn't..." She frowned. 

"Ignore that. That was about you a few moments ago, not me. Now what was it that you were smiling about?"

She mentally shook her head. "I was thinking about how you are constantly trying to embarrass me."

"And that makes you smile?" He quipped. "Perhaps I need to try harder."

She rolled her eyes. "No, I knew another man...well boy...who did the same thing. Just in a different way."

"Tell me about him. I'm certainly not threatened by a boy." A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

What to say? It probably wasn't in good form to talk about another male whilst laying in bed with one. She felt callused finger tips caress her arm, slowly. Tenderly. She grew warm at his touch. If his hips could do what they had, what could his hands do if she'd let them...

"Hey..."

"I, uh. His name was Darius." The fluid motion of his fingers along her arms stilled for a moment, and then began again. "He was a Lord. I met him as a child, I think our parents were friends. Anyway...he used to do things just to see me get worked up. I didn't realize it at the time, but I do now."

"What sorts of things did he do?" 

"Well, they stayed with us for about a month. See, they had traveled a long way to visit. In that time, we were expected to spend much of it together. He was a few years older than me and liked to bully me. For instance," she rolled to her side to look at Arus, "we went down to the docks, the same place you forced me onto this ship a few night ago, and we would go fishing, except he liked to tell me that I couldn't fish."

"Why's that?" There was a small glimmer in his eyes as if he was enjoying the story. 

"Because I'm a girl. He loved to remind me of that. As if being a girl makes me less able to hold a fishing rod. Back then it really bothered me."

He brushed a wayward strand of her hair from her forehead. What had changed in this man?

"Perhaps it was because you were a Lady. He was probably taught that Ladies shouldn't do those sorts of things."

She scoffed, making a very unladylike noise. "Maybe but I was never very ladylike. When I got a bit older I did what I could to keep my mother proud of me but, she always seemed happy just to have me smiling."

"That's a good mother."

Isabella nodded. "Yes. Hah, I remember her frowning when we were all at dinner and I dropped my spoon into my soup, splashing it all over my dress. Little did my mother know that it was because a certain boy, who was seated across from me gave me a swift kick in the shin. I couldn't do anything but scowl at him. He wanted me to cry, I'm sure, but that just wasn't me."