Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [161]
“Jamie! Not here!” I said, squirming away and pushing my skirt down again.
“Are ye tired, Sassenach?” he asked with concern. “Dinna worry, I won’t take long.” Now both hands were at it, rucking the heavy fabric up in front.
“No!” I replied, all too mindful of the twenty men lying a few feet away. “I’m not tired, it’s just—” I gasped as his groping hand found its way between my legs.
“Lord,” he said softly. “It’s slippery as waterweed.”
“Jamie! There are twenty men sleeping right next to us!” I shouted in a whisper.
“They wilna be sleeping long, if you keep talking.” He rolled on top of me, pinning me to the rock. His knee wedged between my thighs and began to work gently back and forth. Despite myself, my legs were beginning to loosen. Twenty-seven years of propriety were no match for several hundred thousand years of instinct. While my mind might object to being taken on a bare rock next to several sleeping soldiers, my body plainly considered itself the spoils of war and was eager to complete the formalities of surrender. He kissed me, long and deep, his tongue sweet and restless in my mouth.
“Jamie,” I panted. He pushed his kilt out of the way and pressed my hand against him.
“Bloody Christ,” I said, impressed despite myself. My sense of propriety slipped another notch.
“Fighting gives ye a terrible cockstand, after. Ye want me, do ye no?” he said, pulling back a little to look at me. It seemed pointless to deny it, what with all the evidence to hand. He was hard as a brass rod against my bared thigh.
“Er…yes…but…”
He took a firm grip on my shoulders with both hands.
“Be quiet, Sassenach,” he said with authority. “It isna going to take verra long.”
It didn’t. I began to climax with the first powerful thrust, in long, racking spasms. I dug my fingers hard into his back and held on, biting the fabric of his shirt to muffle any sounds. In less than a dozen strokes, I felt his testicles contract, tight against his body, and the warm flood of his own release. He lowered himself slowly to the side and lay trembling.
The blood was still beating heavily in my ears, echoing the fading pulse between my legs. Jamie’s hand lay on my breast, limp and heavy. Turning my head, I could see the dim figure of the sentry, leaning against a rock on the far side of the fire. He had his back tactfully turned. I was mildly shocked to realize that I was not even embarrassed. I wondered rather dimly whether I would be in the morning, and then wondered no more.
* * *
In the morning, everyone behaved as usual, if moving a little more stiffly from the effects of fighting and sleeping on rocks. Everyone was in a cheerful humor, even those with minor wounds.
The general humor was improved still further when Dougal announced that we would travel only as far as the clump of woods we could see from the edge of our rocky platform. There we could water and graze the horses, and rest a bit ourselves. I wondered whether this change of plan would affect Jamie’s rendezvous with the mysterious Horrocks, but he seemed undisturbed at the announcement.
The day was overcast but not drizzling, and the air was warm. Once the new camp was made, the horses taken care of, and the wounded all rechecked everyone was left to his own devices, to sleep in the grass, to hunt or fish, or merely to stretch legs after several days in the saddle.
I was sitting under a tree talking to Jamie and Ned Gowan, when one of the men-at-arms came up and flipped something into Jamie’s lap. It was the dirk with the moonstone hilt.
“Yours, lad?” he asked. “Found it in the rocks this morning.”
“I must have dropped it, in all the excitement,” I said. “Just as well; I’ve no idea what to do with it. I’d likely have stabbed myself if I’d tried to use it.”
Ned eyed Jamie censoriously over his half-spectacles.
“Ye gave her a knife and didn’t teach her to use it?”
“There wasna time, under the circumstances,” Jamie defended himself. “But Ned’s right, Sassenach. Ye should learn how to handle arms. There’s no tellin’ what may