Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [144]
Infatuation. It was common, among the nurses and the doctors, the nurses and the patients, among any gathering of people thrown for long periods into one another’s company.
Some acted on it, and brief, intense affairs were frequent. If they were lucky, the affair flamed out within a few months and nothing resulted from it. If they were not…well. Pregnancy, divorce, here and there the odd case of venereal disease. Dangerous thing, infatuation.
I had felt it, several times, but had had the good sense not to act on it. And as it always does, after a time the attraction had lessened, and the man lost his golden aura and resumed his usual place in my life, with no harm done to him, to me, or to Frank.
And now. Now I had been forced to act on it. And God only knew what harm might be done by that action. But there was no turning back from this point.
He lay at ease, sprawled on his stomach. The sun glinted off his red mane and lit the tiny soft hairs that crested his spine, running down to the reddish-gold fuzz that dusted his buttocks and thighs, and deepened into the thicket of soft auburn curls that showed briefly between his spread legs.
I sat up, admiring the long legs, with the smooth line of muscling that indented the thigh from hip to knee, and another that ran from knee to long, elegant foot. The bottoms of his feet were smooth and pink, slightly callused from going barefoot.
My fingers ached, wantingto trace the line of his small, neat ear and the blunt angle of his jaw. Well, I thought, the action had been taken, and it was far past the time for restraint. Nothing I did now could make matters worse, for either of us. I reached out and gently touched him.
He slept very lightly. With a suddenness that made me jump, he flipped over, bracing himself on his elbows as though to leap to his feet. Seeing me, he relaxed, smiling.
“Madam, you have me at a disadvantage.”
He made a very creditable courtly bow, for a man stretched at full length in a patch of ferns, wearing nothing but a few dappled splotches of sunlight, and I laughed. The smile stayed on his face, but it altered as he looked at me, naked in the ferns. His voice was suddenly husky.
“In fact, Madam, you have me at your mercy.”
“Have I, then?” I said softly.
He didn’t move, as I reached out once more and drew my hand slowly down his cheek and neck, over the gleaming slope of his shoulder, and down. He didn’t move, but he closed his eyes.
“Dear Holy Lord,” he said.
He drew his breath in sharply.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It doesn’t have to be rough.”
“Thank God for small mercies.”
“Keep still.”
His fingers dug deeply into the crumbling earth, but he obeyed.
“Please,” he said after a time. Glancing up, I could see that his eyes were open now.
“No,” I said, enjoying myself. He closed his eyes again.
“You’ll pay for this,” he said a short time later. A fine dew of sweat shone on the straight bridge of his nose.
“Really?” I said. “What are you going to do?”
The tendons stood out in his forearms as he pressed his palms against the earth, and he spoke with an effort, as though his teeth were clenched.
“I don’t know, but…by Christ and St. Agnes…I will…th-think of s-something! God! Please!”
“All right,” I said, releasing him.
And I uttered a small shriek as he rolled onto me, pinning me against the ferns.
“Your turn,” he said, with considerable satisfaction.
* * *
We returned to the inn at sunset, pausing at the top of the hill to be sure that the horses of the Watch were no longer hobbled outside.
The inn looked welcoming, light already shining through the small windows, and through the chinks in the walls. The last of the sun glowed behind us as well, so that everything on the hillside threw a double shadow. The breeze rose