Diana Gabaldon · @Writer_DG
14th Oct 2013 from TwitLonger
#DailyLines #MOBY #WrittenINMyOWNHeartsBLOOD #Book8 #OutMarch25th #perversionisintheyeofthebeholder
He rubbed a hand over his sweating face, imagined he smelt the alcohol oozing from his pores, and wiped it on his breeches.
“I don’t want wine, no. Nor do I want to…to do…well, that’s not true,” he admitted. “I do want to—very much,” he added hurriedly, lest she think him insulting, “but I’m not going to.”
She looked at him open-mouthed.
“Why not?” she said at last. “You’ve paid well over the odds for anything you want to do. Including buggery, if that’s your pleasure.” Her lip curled a little. He flushed to the scalp.
“You think I would save you from--that, and then do it _myself_?”
“Yes. Often men don’t think of something until another mentions it, and then they’re all eagerness to try it themselves.”
He was outraged.
“You must have a most indifferent opinion of gentlemen, madam!”
Her mouth twitched again, and she gave him a look of such barely-veiled amusement that the blood burned in his face and ears.
“Right,” he said stiffly, “I take your point.”
“Well, that’s a novelty,” she said, the twitch breaking into a malicious smile. “It’s generally the other way round.”
He breathed deeply through his nose.
“I…it is meant as an apology, if you like.” It was a struggle to keep meeting her eye. “For what happened last time.”
A faint breeze came in, ruffling the hair about her shoulders and filled the fabric of her shift so it billowed, affording him a glimpse of her nipple, like a dark rose in the candle-light. He swallowed and looked away.
“My…um…my stepfather…told me once that a madam of his acquaintance said to him that a night’s sleep was the best gift you could give a whore.”
“It runs in the family, does it? Frequenting brothels?” She didn’t pause for a response to that. “He’s right, though. Do you really mean that you intend for me to…sleep?” From her tone of incredulity, he might have asked her to engage in some perversion well past buggery.