Not brave enough

The whole passage

And then, to lie close, and let a lover’s dreams caress your skin as you begin to sink once more beneath the waves of con­scious­ness, bliss­ful in the knowl­edge that dawn is far off—that’s sec­ond sleep.
I came very slow­ly to the sur­face of my first sleep, to find that the high­ly erot­ic dream I had been hav­ing had some basis in reality.
“I’d nev­er thought myself the sort who’d molest a corpse, Sasse­nach.” Jamie’s voice tick­led the ten­der flesh below my ear, mur­mur­ing. “But I will say the notion has more appeal than I’d thought.”

I wasn’t suf­fi­cient­ly coher­ent as to respond to this, but thrust my hips back toward him in a fash­ion that he seemed to find as elo­quent an invi­ta­tion as one writ­ten in cal­lig­ra­phy on parch­ment. He took a deep breath, a firm grip on my but­tocks, and brought me to an awak­en­ing that could be called rude in sev­er­al sens­es of the word.
I squirmed like a worm impaled on a fish-hook, mak­ing small urgent nois­es that he inter­pret­ed cor­rect­ly, rolling me onto my face and pro­ceed­ing to leave me in no doubt that I was not mere­ly alive and awake, but functioning.
I emerged at length from a nest of flat­tened pil­lows, damp, gasp­ing, quiv­er­ing in every engorged and slip­pery nerve-end­ing, and thor­ough­ly awake.
“What brought that on?” I inquired. He hadn’t pulled away; we lay still joined, washed in the light of a big gold­en half-moon, rid­ing low in the sky above the chest­nut trees. He made a small sound, part­ly amuse­ment, part­ly dismay.

“I can­na look at ye asleep with­out want­i­ng to wake ye, Sasse­nach.” His hand cupped my breast, gen­tly now. “I sup­pose I find myself lone­ly with­out ye.”

“I’m here,” I said, and his arm tight­ened sud­den­ly round me.I HEARD THE BREATH catch in his throat, and my hand tight­ened on his thigh.
“What is it?” I said.
He drew breath, but didn’t answer at once. I felt him draw back a lit­tle, and fum­ble under the pil­low. Then his hand came round me again, but this time seek­ing the hand that lay on his leg. His fin­gers curled into mine, and I felt a small, hard, roundish object thrust into my hand.
I heard him swal­low. “I love you,” he said, so soft­ly that I bare­ly heard him, close as we were.
I lay still for a moment, feel­ing the stone grow warmer in the palm of my hand. Sure­ly it was imag­i­na­tion that made it seem to throb in time with my heart. Where on earth had he got­ten it?
Then I moved—not sud­den­ly, but with delib­er­a­tion, my body slid­ing slow­ly free of his. I rose, feel­ing light-head­ed, and crossed the room. Pushed open the win­dow to feel the sharp touch of the autumn wind on my naked bed-warm skin, and draw­ing back my arm, hurled the tiny object into the night.
Then I came back to bed, saw his hair a dark mass on the pil­low, and the shine of his eyes in the moon­light. “I love you,” I whis­pered, and slid under the sheet beside him, putting my arms around him, hug­ging him close, warmer than the stone—so much warmer—and his heart beat with mine.“I’m none so brave as I was before, ken?” he said very soft­ly. “Not brave enough to live with­out ye anymore.”

But brave enough to try.
I drew his head down to me, stroking the tum­ble of his hair, coarse and smooth at once, live beneath my fingers.
“Lay your head, man,” I said soft­ly. “It’s a long time ’til dawn.”

All rights for the Pic­ture go to the right­ful owner Starz.
Text by Diana Gabal­don from “A Breath of Snow and Ashes “
I own not­hing but the editing