The Seer's Choice: A Novella of the Golden City by J. Kathleen Cheney Page B

football attire, surely he didn’t either. He checked his fingers, wiping them on one already dirt-splattered sleeve.
    “Here, lift your face.” When Genoveva complied, he used the other sleeve to wipe her cheek. He grinned down at her. “There, clean now.”
    Then he touched her cheek, and his smiled faded into something altogether different. His damp fingers slid back until they wrapped about the side of her neck. His thumb stroked over her lips, pausing there.
    She gazed up at him, transfixed. Her mouth suddenly felt dry. The beating of her heart was almost louder than the drum of the rain on the awning. Was he going to kiss her?
    “Do you want me to kiss you?” His voice sounded rough.
    A bead of water had fallen from her hair into her eyelashes. She blinked it away. “Yes.”
    He did so. His lips were firm against hers. It wasn’t like a kiss of greeting. He seemed to devour her lips, nibbling at them in a way that didn’t seem like it would be half as enticing as it was. He drew her to him, his arms going about her back, settling on her waist and holding her body against his.
    This was improper, particularly dressed as he was in only shirtsleeves and shorts.
    It was delicious .
    Her hands were pressed against his chest, only the thin fabric of his shirt between them. This overwhelming desire to touch and be touched was something new to her.
    And then the door opened inward, throwing them both off balance and breaking the illusion of privacy they’d shared. An old woman wrapped in a black shawl—probably the shop’s owner—shook her bony finger at them, berating them for misbehavior in front of her door.
    Genoveva stepped back, fixing her eyes on the sidewalk to convey contrition as the woman continued to wag her finger at the captain. In truth, she was hard pressed not to break out in laughter. She felt a soaring joy she didn’t think she’d felt in years. Had she ever felt this way?
    The captain shot a smoldering glance at her from under a lowered brow. No, he didn’t look like he regretted it, either.
    Fortunately, the rain began to let up, settling back to a drizzle more suited to fall than early summer. The captain offered his apologies to the old woman, promising never to besmirch her doorstep again. The old woman slammed the door and they both laughed.
    The captain swept down and plucked her forgotten straw hat off the pavement. It was sodden now. He shook it out and handed it to her with a rueful expression. There was no point in putting it back on. He held out one hand. “Shall we go, Miss Jardim?”
    “Yes, Captain,” she said, laying her hand in his.
    They’d walked a short distance from the awning before he leaned closer and said, “I wouldn’t mind if you called me Rafael.”
    Genoveva carefully kept her eyes on the cobbles. They were tricky when wet. She was still having trouble catching her breath, and this street wasn’t even a steep one. “I wouldn’t mind if you called me Genoveva.”
    “Not Gena?”
    No one had ever called her by a shortened version of her name, not even her sisters. Her father had thought it common . But the idea of letting Rafael Pinheiro call her that was enticing. “I suppose you could.”
    A smile touched his lips. He was studying the street ahead of them and eyeing the other pedestrians to keep from walking her into someone else. He had kissed her once, and her chest actually ached with her desire to be closer to him.
    When they reached his house, Mrs. Crespo apparently wasn’t home, so Genoveva waited in the entry hallway for him to go upstairs and change clothes. A narrow bureau stood under the stairwell, a mirror above it, so she went to check her hair.
    She didn’t look any different. No matter how different she felt inside, it didn’t show. This had to be what falling in love felt like, and she’d halfway expected it to be scribbled across her forehead in rose-colored ink.
    Instead she was bedraggled. She had to laugh. A strand hung loose from