1
" His tender tone turned her heart over. She obliged, tilting her head back slightly and looking up at him in the firelit darkness. When he bent his head and his mouth met hers, she gave a little sigh, her lips parting slightly in surprise and expectation. He kissed her with the same sure decisiveness with which he did everything else, his mouth trailing to her cheek and chin and ear, returning again and again to her mouth and lingering there, his breath mingling with her own.
She felt adrift in small, sharp bursts of pleasure. Was this how a man was suppose to kiss a woman? Tenderly... firmly... repeatedly? His fingers fanned through her hair till the pins gave way and wayward locks spilled like black ribbon to the small of her back. In answer, her arms circled his neck, bringing him nearer, every kiss sweeter and surer than the one before. Soon they were lost in a haze of sighs and murmurs and caresses. "
― Laura Frantz , The Colonel's Lady
8
" She swam nearer and her breath caught. Lying atop the rock was a bow and quiver full of arrows beside a pair of beaded moccasins. She spun around in the water, joy bubbling up inside her. But before she could take a breath, firm hands caught her ankles and tugged her under. She came up sputtering and laughing, but he’d still not surfaced. So he swims like a fish. She remembered he could also run like a deer, overtaking her in the woods all those years before. “Yellow Bird.” The voice behind her seemed almost to drown her with its depth. She turned to Captain Jack, hard pressed to keep her pleasure down. How many days since they had walked in the meadow? Too many, from the feeling inside her. In one glance she took in the doused eagle feathers of his headdress and the fine silver bands encircling his solid upper arms. Shimmering with water, Captain Jack’s hair was blue black. The beads about his neck were the same startling jade as his eyes and made him even more appealing. Suddenly shy, she ducked beneath the water, then swam away. Would he follow? They did a dance of sorts in the warm current, circling, gliding, swaying. Each time he caught her she pulled free and swam farther downriver than she’d ever been before. But he continued to woo her, pursuing her until she was so breathless she could only lie upon her back and float, the river like a watery bed. "
― Laura Frantz , The Frontiersman's Daughter
