Men hate things to change,” her mother had once casually told her. “Unless it’s their idea, of course. But you can make them think it is their idea, sometimes.
I said I was a virgin, not a monk,” he said, kissing me again. “If I find I need guidance, I’ll ask.
Besides,” he added cynically, “a pair of ballocks may bring a man more sorrow than joy – though I havena met many who’d wish them gone, for all that.
What if, this time, you fall?
Dear God,” he said, still softly. “I couldna look at ye, Sassenach, and keep my hands from you, nor have ye near me, and not want ye.
I stood in front of him in nothing but my shoes and gartered rose-silk stockings.
I prayed all the way up that hill yesterday; not for you to stay; I didna think that would be right. I prayed I’d be strong enough to send ye away. I said, “Lord, if I’ve ever had courage in my life before, let me have it now. Let me be brave enough and not fall to my knees and beg her to stay.
Fraser nodded casually toward Twelvetrees. “Is there anything ye want me to beat out of him?
I can hear. Hear them. It. Don’t you hear?” It was a struggle to speak, to form coherent thoughts. The call here was different; not the beehive sound of Craigh na Dun, but a hum like the vibration of the air following the striking of a great bell. I could feel it ringing in the long bones of my arms, echoing through pectoral girdle and spine. Jamie.
Hal swore in German behind him. He must have reached the part about the rifles; German oaths were reserved for the most stringent occasions, French being used for minor things like a burnt dinner, and Latin for formal insults committed to paper. Minnie wouldn’t let either Hal or John swear in English in the house, not wanting the boys to acquire low habits. John could have told her it was too late for such caution but didn’t.
Then I laid my head upon his chest and gave my dreams up to his keeping.
And his release began, deep inside me, without his moving, shivering through his body so that his arms trembled, the ruddy hairs quivering in the dim light, and he dropped his head with a sound like a sob, his hair hiding his face as he spilled himself, each jerk and pulse of his flesh between my legs rousing an echo in my own.
And I want only to throw myself into it and be consumed.
All loss is one, and one loss becomes all, a single death the key to the gate that bars memory.
I felt rather like the new moon: the shadow of pain and death was still clearly visible to me – but only because the light was there to throw it into perspective.
Stones of protection; amethyst, emerald, turquoise, lapis lazuli, and a male ruby.
You’d die for them, happily,” Hal had said, in the long night watch when I’d kept him breathing. “Your family. But at the same time you think, Christ, I can’t die! What might happen to them if I weren’t here?
Gave me terrible cramps, and I had wind for days.
People are gregarious by necessity.
You are blood of my blood,” he said softly, “and bone of my bone. I claim thee as my son before all men, from this day forever.” He looked up at Jamie, challenging. After a long moment, Jamie gave the slightest nod of acknowledgment, and stepped back, letting his hand fall from Brianna’s shoulder. Roger.