𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐖𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐁𝐞 | 𝐉𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫 ✅

17 - Welcome Home

"Christ," he cursed, looking at me as if I was going to disappear if he took his eyes off of me, "I shouldna have done that -"

It was my turn to be brave.

I surged forward and pressed my lips against his again, catching him completely off guard... but it did not take him long to reciprocate. Jamie kissed me back, his arms once more going around my body. There seemed a new sort of urgency to this kiss, however, and he snapped his hips forward against me. I whimpered, delighting in how his movements felt against me, even through the sopping wet cloak and fabric of my dress.

My knees buckled and I began to lose my balance. Slowly, Jamie lowered us to the ground, laying me on my back and resting himself over the top of me, our mouths not parting. There was something marvellous about this; if this was sex - the forbidden act that happened between a man and his wife or a whore and her paying customer, then I could see why it was so forbidden. It was divine.

Jamie drove his bottom half against my own again and again, removing his lips from my own and instead burying his face in my neck, nipping at the skin there. I whimpered, crying out his name. I wasn't sure what I wanted from him exactly, but it was so much more.

Something about the way that I had said his name shocked him from his revelry, and he drew away from me, standing up and looking down at me several seconds before he cursed in Gaelic under his breath and then offered me a hand. I took it, blushing deeply, my heart beating loudly in my chest. He pulled me to my feet and then looked down at his feet, "I'm sorry, Eira, I -"
"Jamie, dinna be sorry." Gingerly, I reached out and rested my hand against his cheek. He was as warm as I was. "Ye didna force me into anything. What we just did..." I turned my head over my shoulder to look at the sodden grass where I had just been laying. There was no imprint there, nothing.

Had all that really just happened?
By the sorry look in Jamie's eyes, I knew that I had not imagined it.

"What we just did," I swallowed, "was amazing."

Jamie breathed out as if in relief and then his mouth stretched into a smirk. He had always been the same; unable to hide a smile. "Aye, it was." He paused, frowning, "but we canna tell anybody... and it canna happen again."

"Why not?" I asked in a forlorn tone, wanting nothing more than to be underneath him once more.

"Because we arna wed, Mo Chridhe." The use of the old nickname ignited another fire within me. I wanted to beg him to let me have just five more minutes in the grass with him. "What we just did, wonderful as it was, is supposed to be sacred - an act between a man and his wife only -"

"But whores -"

"Dinna compare yeself to them!" he snapped, causing me to frown, though not take a step away from him. He was not angry with me, I knew, but rather wanted me to value myself more highly than a common whore. Jamie turned away from me. "I just took advantage of ye, and I shouldna have done so -"

"Ye didna." I promised him, moving around so I could look into his eyes once more. "Ye didna force me into anything, Jamie, I promise ye." Tentatively, he reached out and picked some grass from my coal black curls, dropping the blades to the ground and watching them fall before he looked back at me. "I wanted everything that we just did..." I swallowed, "I want more than what we just did. Jamie, I want ye -"
"But we arna married."

I didn't care whether we were married or not; I wanted him, and him entirely. I didn't care what that made me, for I was in love with him. I was in love with all of him, from the red curls on his head to the very last imperfection. I didn't care about myself anymore - I existed purely for Jamie, just as I always had... though I was now ready to tell him.

Plain, polite and utterly disposed towards Jamie Fraser. I was sure that I would stay that way for as long as I lived. I loved him; plainly, simply and deeply.

I opened my mouth to tell him how I truly felt, but he spoke before I could.

"Yer not supposed to do things like that until yer married." It sounded like he was speaking to himself, but I had to ask him anyway.

"H-have you ever...?"
The words lingered between us, as loud as if I had actually finished the sentence. Have you ever done with a woman what you just did with me? Have you done more? Am I your first, James Fraser?

He shook his head, his red trusses catching the late morning sunlight, shining through the raindrops which seemed to be lightening up.

"No." He told me simply, "there's only ye... there's only ever been ye."
I let out a deep breath at that, relieved that it was only me for him and him for me.

Jamie turned and looked over his shoulder at Lallybroch in the valley below the field. There was a steady chain of smoke rising from two of the larger chimneys, of which there were four main ones and several smaller ones - one for each room that there was a fireplace in.

"We should be getting back."

I knew that he was right. It was only a matter of time before somebody looked in the stable and noticed that our two horses were in there - and Jamie's luggage - but that we were nowhere to be found.

I bowed my head in agreement, "aye, perhaps... but Jamie?"
"Aye?" He had not yet started walking back to the house, but he had that far away look in his eyes that told me he was deep in thought.

"We need to talk about this... and about us."
He was silent for several seconds before he bowed his head in agreement, "aye, we do. Another time. Soon. I promise ye."

That was enough for me. He held out an arm, forever the gentleman that his father had raised him to be, and I took it. We walked together back to the house in silence. It was uncomfortable.