Page 50 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
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Charlotte came up spluttering and gasping, her curly hair plastered over her face and her arms flailing. She took in a great lungful of air and continued to thrash at whatever it was that had gotten a hold of her.
“Easy, Sassenach, easy!” a familiar voice said.
In the back of her mind, Charlotte was aware that she knew that voice, but her immediate panic and her conviction that she was drowning overrode everything else.
She caught glimpses of naked flesh through her tangled hair––sky, water, skin, sky, water, skin––and the blinding blaze of the sun flashing off the surface of the lake.
“Sassenach, calm yerself! Sassenach!”
I am trapped, I am trapped, I am drowning, I––!
Warm, hard lips pressed against her mouth. Abruptly, the world and everything in it faded, compressed down into the space occupied by her lips and the lips pressing against them.
Edward’s lips… They’re Edward’s lips!
Her panic, her fear and her confusion vanished, as if they had been flames that had had a wet blanket thrown over the top of them.
The unexpected bliss of the kiss thrilled through her, expanding out from where their lips met in a warm glow. After what might have been only a few heart beats or a matter of days, the two of them broke apart.
Charlotte realized that she had closed her eyes the moment that Edward had kissed her. She opened them now, squinting slightly from the reflection of the sunset on the waters of the little lake.
“Are ye all right there, Sassenach?” Edward said. “Has the fear left ye now? Ye’re quite safe, I promise ye.”
Charlotte gazed up at him, quite at a loss as to what she should say.
“I…” she began. “How did I…?”
Now that she had opened her eyes, it was almost as if she had stepped out of a dream.
Did that really just happen?
“How did ye get to be entangled with me legs?” Edward asked.
“Your legs?” Charlotte replied. She thought she might have been swept into some roots or stopped by some sturdy branches or something along those lines.
“Aye, me legs,” Edward said, gazing at her. He was holding her by her shoulders, the lake water lapping at his muscular chest. “Ye gave me quite a start, I do not mind tellin’ ye. I thought there really might be Crodh Mara in here, ye were thrashin’ about like an unbroken nag.”
“And you––you…” Charlotte said, raising a hand unconsciously to her face and touching her lips with two fingers. It might just have been her imagination, but still felt hot and tingly to her.
“Aye, I kissed ye,” Edward said, gruffly. “I’m sorry fer it. I just pulled ye up and ye would nae stop yellin’ and flailin’ and I did nae ken what else to do. Plus, I had nae ever seen anythin’ so––so––”
“Deranged?” Charlotte supplied.
“––bonnie in all me life,” Edward finished.
Charlotte blinked. Her eyes ran over the Highlander’s face; from his own guarded brown eyes––lightened to hazel in the glow of the setting sun––down his strong, stubbly jaw to his broad chest with its light covering of hair.
And it was then, of all moments, that her brain decided to remind her that she was extremely naked, and that the water was almost as transparent as glass.
Charlotte’s hands moved up to cover her chest. She moved a couple of careful steps away and looked awkwardly out across the hills. Then, she felt the water around her move, and suddenly Edward’s large, callused hands had taken hers gently in his.
“There’s nothin’ wrong wi’ havin’ feelin’s, Sassenach,” he said, in his deep voice, the lyrical brogue of his accent sending shivers through her chest. “Ye do not have to feel guilty about havin’ emotions, despite what that bastard of a faither might have tried to have ye believe.”
Charlotte allowed her hands to be pried gently apart, then she felt herself moving gently through the water towards the naked Highlander. She did not try to stop him. She ceased to worry whether this might be considered appropriate or not, good or bad, right or wrong.
“I made me own heart a stone after me mither was taken from me,” Edward said, his stern face focused entirely on hers. “There’s nay future in a life where ye care for nay one and nothin’.”
