Diana Gabaldon · @Writer_DG
14th Jul 2012 from Twitlonger
#DailyLines #PREQUEL #ThisisBrianAndEllensStory #NOitsnotpublished #ItsnotWRITTENsaveforbitslikethis #Butitwillgetdoneeventually
"Have ye ever done it before?" she asked suspiciously.
"Ah..." He had. More or less. Once. And damned if he meant to admit it. "Have you?"
Her eyes opened up like cornflowers.
"Oh, aye," she said. "With my brother Dougal."
"WHAT?" Brian flung himself back, feeling as though his heart had stopped. She curled up in a ball, laughing like a loon, and it started again.
"You," he said, leveling a forefinger at her, "are a bloody wee bitch, Ellen MacKenzie."
"Oh, maybe." She was still giggling, but stopped when she saw the look on his face. "Ye didna believe me, did you?"
"Of course not!" Of course not. Still, Dougal MacKenzie...people did say...
She snorted.
"Ye dinna believe I'm a virgin?"
He lost patience.
"Well, are ye?"
"Ye'll know in a minute, won't ye?" She stretched out flat on her back in the heather, hands fisted at her sides, eyes squinched shut.
He considered her for a moment, distractedly rubbing his chin. What was she expecting him to do, exactly?
She opened one eye.
"Did ye not want to lie wi' me?"
"Well, I canna really be...I mean...wi' you lying like that..." he gestured helplessly at her position.
"Oh." She promptly spread her legs wide, stretching the fabric of her skirt. "Is that better?"
"Aye, much better," he said dryly. "Sit up, ye wee besom, and kiss me."
She did sit up, but warily. She sat quite still, though she lifted her chin, and he saw the heart beating in her, a flutter under the skin of her throat. With a brief flutter of his own, he realized that she was afraid--and undoubtedly would die, rather than admit that.
He reached out a cautious hand, cupping her cheek, light as he might lift a nesting dove from the doo-cot. She closed her eyes, and licked her lower lip with a sort of convulsive twitch. Then she pursed her lips, frowning a little in concentration.
He did not believe it. But he said it, anyway.
"And ye've never kissed anyone?"
"Well, my mither," she said, still frowning, eyes closed. "Get on wi' it, then."
He took his hand away from her cheek, and massaged his face with both palms. "Mary, Joseph and Bride defend us," he muttered. It was beginning to dawn on him that stealing Ellen MacKenzie was maybe not just such a simple matter as he might have supposed.