" The danger wasn’t over.
Rolling her around so that she floated on her back, he swam her to shore. A much easier proposition than on the way out. Reaching the safety of the beach, he lifted her in his arms, wrenching her from the steel jaws of the sea that had tried to claim her.
He carried her a few feet up the beach and set her down carefully, kneeling beside her.
“Flora.” He shook her shoulders gently. “Wake up.”
She looked so still. So horribly still. “Flora.” He shook her gently, his chest squeezing painfully.
“Please wake up. I need you to wake up.” I need you.
Her eyes fluttered again and then—blissfully—opened. And he found himself looking into the achingly
familiar fathomless depths. He felt a rush of relief so strong, he could have wept. Instead he kissed her.
He knew there wasn’t time, that he had to get her back, but he couldn’t help it. He needed to know that she was alive.
His mouth covered hers in a searing kiss, as if he could warm the cold from her lips with the heat of his passion. He kissed her with a raw desperation born of fear. With all the intensity of the emotions she’d exposed inside him. He told her with his lips what he couldn’t admit to himself.
In that one brief instant, he told her so much. "

― Monica McCarty , Highlander Unchained (MacLeods of Skye Trilogy, #3)