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The whole Scene from The Fiery Cross

“I’m cold,” he said soft­ly. “I’m ver­ra cold.”
I pressed my fin­gers light­ly just under his breast­bone, seek­ing the big abdom­i­nal pulse. His heart­beat was rapid, shal­low­er than it should have been. He wasn’t fever­ish. He didn’t just feel cold, he was cold to the touch, his skin chilled and his fin­gers icy. I found that very alarm­ing.
No longer shy, I cud­dled close against him, my breasts squash­ing soft­ly against his back, cheek rest­ing on his shoul­der blade. I con­cen­trat­ed as hard as I could on gen­er­at­ing body heat, try­ing to radi­ate warmth through my skin and into his. So often he had enfold­ed me in the curve of his body, shel­ter­ing me, giv­ing me the warmth of his big body. I wished pas­sion­ate­ly that I were larg­er, and could do the same for him now; as it was, I could do no more than cling to him like a small, fierce mus­tard plas­ter, and hope I had the same effect.

Very gen­tly, I found the hem of his shirt and pulled it up, then cupped my hands to fit the rounds of his but­tocks. They tight­ened slight­ly in sur­prise, then relaxed.
It occurred to me to won­der just why I felt I must lay hands on him, but I didn’t trou­ble my mind with it; I had had the feel­ing many times before, and had long since giv­en up wor­ry­ing that it wasn’t sci­en­tif­ic.
I could feel the faint­ly peb­bled tex­ture of the rash upon his skin, and the thought came unbid­den of the lamia. A crea­ture smooth and cool to the touch, a shape-shifter, pas­sion­ate­ly ven­omous, its nature infec­tious. A swift bite and the snake’s poi­son spread­ing, slow­ing his heart, chill­ing his warm blood; I could imag­ine tiny scales ris­ing under his skin in the dark.
I forcibly repressed the thought, but not the shud­der that went with it.

“Claire,” he said soft­ly. “Touch me.”

I couldn’t hear his heart­beat. I could hear mine; a thick, muf­fled sound in the ear pressed to the pil­low.
I slid my hand over the slope of his bel­ly, and more slow­ly down, fin­gers part­ing the coarse curly tan­gle, dip­ping low to cup the round­ed shapes of him. What heat he had was here.
I stroked him with a thumb and felt him stir. The breath went out of him in a long sigh, and his body seemed to grow heav­ier, sink­ing into the mat­tress as he relaxed. His flesh was like can­dle wax in my hand, smooth and silky as it warmed.
I felt very odd; no longer fright­ened, but with all my sens­es at once preter­nat­u­ral­ly acute and yet … peace­ful. I was no longer con­scious of any sounds save Jamie’s breath­ing and the beat­ing of his heart; the dark­ness was filled with them. I had no con­scious thought, but seemed to act pure­ly by instinct, reach­ing down and under, seek­ing the heart of his heat in the cen­ter of his being.
Then I was moving—or we were mov­ing togeth­er. One hand reached down between us, up between his legs, my fin­ger­tips on the spot just behind his tes­ti­cles. My oth­er hand reached over, around, mov­ing with the same rhythm that flexed my thighs and lift­ed my hips, thrust­ing against him from behind.
I could have done it for­ev­er, and felt that per­haps I did. I had no sense of time pass­ing, only of a dreamy peace, and that slow, steady rhythm as we moved togeth­er in the dark. Some­where, some­time, I felt a steady puls­ing, first in the one hand, then in both. It meld­ed with the beat of his heart.
He sighed, long and deep, and I felt the air rush from my own lungs. We lay silent and passed gen­tly into uncon­scious­ness, together.

All rights for the Pic­ture from Out­lander go to the right­ful own­er Starz/Sony
Quote and Excerpt by Diana Gabal­don from “The Fiery Cross”
I own noth­ing but the editing