Read Online Outlander by Diana Gabaldon - Free Book Online

the calls, and the timing of the dance.
    “Norse,” he said at last, with satisfaction. “The root words are Ancient Norse, I’m almost sure of it. But the dance,” he shook his head, pondering. “No, the dance is very much older. Not that there aren’t Viking circle dances,” he said, raising his brows censoriously, as though I had suggested there weren’t. “But that shifting pattern with the double-line business, that’s…hmm, it’s like…well, some of the patterns on the Beaker Folk glazeware show a pattern rather like that, but then again…hmm.”
    He dropped into one of his scholarly trances, muttering to himself from time to time. The trance was broken only when he stumbled unexpectedly over an obstacle near the bottom of the hill. He flung his arms out with a startled cry as his feet went out from under him and he rolled untidily down the last few feet of the path, fetching up in a clump of cow parsley.
    I dashed down the hill after him, but found him already sitting up among the quivering stems by the time I reached the bottom.
    “Are you all right?” I asked, though I could see that he was.
    “I think so.” He passed a hand dazedly over his brow, smoothing back the dark hair. “What did I trip over?”
    “This.” I held up a sardine tin, discarded by some earlier visitor. “One of the menaces of civilization.”
    “Ah.” He took it from me, peered inside, then tossed it over one shoulder. “Pity it’s empty. I’m feeling rather hungry after that excursion. Shall we see what Mrs. Baird can provide in the way of a late breakfast?”
    “We might,” I said, smoothing the last strands of hair for him. “And then again, we might make it an early lunch instead.” My eyes met his.
    “Ah,” he said again, with a completely different tone. He ran a hand slowly up my arm and up the side of my neck, his thumb gently tickling the lobe of my ear. “So we might.”
    “If you aren’t too hungry,” I said. The other hand found its way behind my back. Palm spread, it pressed me gently toward him, fingers stroking lower and lower. His mouth opened slightly and he breathed, ever so lightly, down the neck of my dress, his warm breath tickling the tops of my breasts.
    He laid me carefully back in the grass, the feathery blossoms of the cow parsley seeming to float in the air around his head. He bent forward and kissed me, softly, and kept on kissing me as he unbuttoned my dress, one button at a time, teasing, pausing to reach a hand inside and play with the swelling tips of my breasts. At last he had the dress laid open from neck to waist.
    “Ah,” he said again, in yet another tone. “Like white velvet.” He spoke hoarsely, and his hair had fallen forward again, but he made no attempt to brush it back.
    He sprang the clasp of my brassiere with one accomplished flick of the thumb, and bent to pay a skilled homage to my breasts. Then he drew back, and cupping my breasts with both hands, drew his palms slowly down to meet between the rising mounds, and without stopping, drew them softly outward again, tracing the line of my rib cage clear to the back. Up and again, down and around, until I moaned and turned toward him. He sank his lips onto mine, and pressed me toward him until our hips fitted tightly together. He bent his head to mine, nibbling softly around the rim of my ear.
    The hand stroking my back slipped lower and lower, stopping suddenly in surprise. It felt again, then Frank raised his head and looked down at me, grinning.
    “What’s all this, then?” he asked, in imitation of a village bobby. “Or rather, what’s
not
all this?”
    “Just being prepared,” I said primly. “Nurses are taught to anticipate contingencies.”
    “Really, Claire,” he murmured, sliding his hand under my skirt and up my thigh to the soft, unprotected warmth between my legs, “you are the most terrifyingly practical person I have ever known.”
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    Frank came up behind me as I sat in the parlor chair