Does it ever stop? The wanting you?" "Even when I've just left ye. I want you so much my chest feels tight and my fingers ache with wanting to touch ye again.

Once you've chosen a man, don't try to change him', I wrote with more confidence. 'It can't be done. More important-don't let him try to change you.

I shook so that it was some time before I realized that he was shaking too, and for the same reason. I don't know how long we sat there on the dusty floor, crying in each others arms with the longing of twenty years spilling down our faces.

I thought the force of my wanting must wake ye, surely. And then ye did come. . ." He stopped, looking at me with eyes gone soft and dark. "Christ, Claire, ye were so beautiful, there on the stair, wi' your hair down and the shadow of your body with the light behind ye…." He shook his head slowly. "I did think I should die, if I didna have ye," he said softly. "Just then.

I had one last try. "Does it bother you that I'm not a virgin?" He hesitated a moment before answering. "Well, no," he said slowly, "so long as it doesna bother you that I am." He grinned at my drop-jawed expression, and backed toward the door. "Reckon one of us should know what they're doing," he said. The door closed softly behind him; clearly the courtship was over.

I'll leave it to you, Sassenach," he said dryly, "to imagine what it feels like to arrive unexpectedly in the midst of a brothel, in possession of a verra large sausage.

And when my body shall cease, my soul will still be yours, Claire? I swear by my hope of heaven, I will not be parted from you." The wind stirred the leaves of the chestnut trees nearby, and the scents of late summer rose up rich around us; pine and grass and strawberries, sun-warmed stone and cool water, and the sharp, musky smell of his body next to mine. "Nothing is lost, Sassenach; only changed." "That's the first law of thermodynamics," I said, wiping my nose. "No," he said. "That's faith.