Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [206]
“Looks as though it was a hard ride, Sassenach,” he said, lightly touching a blue bruise on my inner thigh. “A bit saddle-sore, are ye?”
I narrowed my eyes and traced a deep bite-mark on his shoulder with my finger.
“You look a bit ragged around the edges yourself, my lad.”
“Ah, weel,” he said in broad Scots, “if ye bed wi’ a vixen, ye must expect to get bit.” He reached up and grasped me behind the neck, pulling me down to him. “Come here to me, vixen. Bite me some more.”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I said, pulling back. “I can’t possibly; I’m too sore.”
James Fraser was not a man to take no for an answer.
“I’ll be verra gentle,” he wheedled, dragging me inexorably under the quilt. And he was gentle, as only big men can be, cradling me like a quail’s egg, paying me court with a humble patience that I recognized as reparation—and a gentle insistence that I knew was a continuation of the lesson so brutally begun the night before. Gentle he would be, denied he would not.
He shook in my arms at his own finish, shuddering with the effort not to move, not to hurt me by thrusting, letting the moment shatter him as it would.
Afterward, still joined, he traced the fading bruises his fingers had left on my shoulders by the roadside two days before.
“I’m sorry for those, mo duinne,” he said, gently kissing each one. “I was in a rare temper when I did it, but it’s no excuse. It’s shameful to hurt a woman, in a rage or no. I’ll not do it again.”
I laughed a bit ironically. “You’re apologizing for those? What about the rest? I’m a mass of bruises, from head to toe!”
“Och?” He drew back to look me over judiciously. “Well now, these I’ve apologized for,” touching my shoulder, “those,” slapping my rear lightly, “ye deserved, and I’ll not say I’m sorry for it, because I’m not.”
“As for these,” he said, stroking my thigh, “I’ll not apologize for that, either. Ye paid me full measure already.” He rubbed his shoulder, grimacing. “Ye drew blood in at least two places, Sassenach, and my back stings like holy hell.”
“Well, bed with a vixen…” I said, grinning. “You won’t get an apology for that.” He laughed in response and pulled me on top of him.
“I didna say I wanted an apology, did I? If I recall aright, what I said was ‘Bite me again.’ ”
PART FOUR
A Whiff of Brimstone
24
BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS
The hubbub occasioned by our sudden arrival and the announcement of our marriage was overshadowed almost at once by an event of greater importance.
We were sitting at supper in the great Hall the next day, accepting the toasts and good wishes being offered in our honor.
“Buidheachas, mo caraid.” Jamie bowed gracefully to the latest toaster, and sat down amid the increasingly sporadic applause. The wooden bench shook under his weight, and he closed his eyes briefly.
“Getting a bit much for you?” I whispered. He had borne the brunt of the toasting, matching each cup drained on our behalf, while I had so far escaped with no more than token sips, accompanied by bright smiles at the incomprehensible Gaelic toasts.
He opened his eyes and looked down at me, smiling himself.
“Am I drunk, do ye mean? Nay, I could drink this stuff all night.”
“You practically have,” I said, peering at the array of empty wine bottles and stone ale-jars lined up on the board in front of us. “It’s getting rather late.” The candles on Colum’s table burned low in their holders, and the guttered wax glowed gold, the light marking the MacKenzie brothers with odd patches of shadow and glinting flesh as they leaned together, talking in low voices. They could have joined the company of carved gnomic heads that edged the huge fireplace, and I wondered how many of those caricatured figures had in fact been drawn from the patronizing features of earlier MacKenzie lairds—perhaps by a carver with a sense of humor…or a strong family connection.
Jamie stretched slightly in his seat, grimacing in mild discomfort.
“On the other