The Highlander's Touch Quotes

“He ran a hand over his face and shook his head. "Lass, I have never lied to you. I adore you and there have never been any other women from the future here. And these"- he flung a tampon in the air- "cleaning swabs, I cannot fathom why they upset you so greatly, but I assure you I have never let the maids use them."

Lisa's brow furrowed. No man could be so stupid. "Cleaning Swabs?"

He snatched up a gun and jerked the barrel in her direction, and an unwrapped tampon shot out. It was coated with black from the slow corrosion of the steel. She eyed it for a moment, bent, and plucked it from the floor. "You clean your guns with these?"

He lowered the gun. "Is that not the purpose for which they were designed? I vow I could not conceive of another."

Didn't you read the box?"

There were too many words I didn't understand!”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Good night, Lisa. Sleep with the angels."
Her eyes stung from quick tears. It had been her mother's nightly benediction: Sleep with the angels. But then he added words her mother never had: "Then come back to earth and sleep with your devil, who would burn in hell for one night in your arms.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Feelings, emotions - they are neither right nor wrong. They cannot be assigned a value. Feelings *are*. By labeling a feeling wrong, you force yourself to ignore that feeling. And what you most need is to feel it, let it burn through you, then get on with life.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Her eyes narrowed, and her lips parted around a knowing laugh. "Oh. It's you."
"Pardon?" He was taken aback. "Do we know each other, lass?" He was quite certain they didn't; he could never have
forgotten this woman. The enticing manner in which her lips were currently pursed would have been seared into his
memory.
"The answer is no. I don't know you. But every other woman in this room does. Duncan Douglas, isn't it?" she said dryly.
Duncan studied her face. Although she was young-perhaps no more than twenty-she had a regal bearing beyond her years. "I do have some reputation with the lasses," he conceded, downplaying his prowess, confident of her impending maidenly swoon.
The look she gave him was far from admiring. He did a double take when he realized her gaze was downright disparaging.
"Not something I care for in a man," she said coolly. "Thank you for your offer, but I'd sooner dance with last week's rushes. They would be less used. Who wants what everyone else has already had?" The words were delivered
in a cool, modulated tone, shaped by an odd accent he couldn't place. Quite finished with him, she presented her
back and resumed talking to her companion.
Duncan was immobilized by shock.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Swallowing hard, she looked at him.
He raised his eyes from the frothy concoction on his spoon at the precise moment she looked up, and their gazes
locked over the length of the polished wood table. Where would you drip whipped cream on him, Lisa? The answer
came with frightening swiftness and conviction: Everywhere. She wanted to explore his body, the hard ripples, the smooth skin. The candlelight bathed his olive skin with a golden hue, and his dark good looks were set off perfectly by his linen shirt and the splash of black and crimson draped across his chest. He was mesmerizing.
"Are you hungry, lass?" He licked his spoon languidly. She couldn't tear her gaze away. "No. I've eaten quite
enough," she managed.
"You seem to be watching my dessert most intently. Are you certain there isn't something else you wish to sate your appetite?"
Besides you to remove your clothing, lie on the table, and let me finger paint you with whipped cream, you mean?
"Nope," she said casually. "Not a thing." She watched him for a moment; he still had a great deal of dessert left. How was she going to get through this?”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Circenn moved swiftly, intending to catch the tear upon his finger, kiss it away, then kiss away all her pain and fear, and assure her that he would permit no harm to touch her and would spend his life making things up to her; but she dropped the flask onto the table and turned swiftly.
"Please, leave me alone," she said and turned away from him. "Let me comfort you, Lisa," he entreated.
"Leave me alone."
For the first time in his life, Circenn
felt utterly helpless. Let her grieve, his heart instructed. She would need to grieve, for discovering that the flask didn't work was tantamount to lowering her mother into a solitary grave. She would grieve her mother as if she'd in truth died that very day. May God
forgive me, he prayed. I did not know what I was doing when I cursed that flask.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“One of the first lessons a warrior is taught is that denial of one's circumstances only results in failure to recognize real danger.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Dunnottar? Edward? Dear God! She hadn’t merely traveled through time—she’d been dropped smack into the sequel to Braveheart!”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Then come back to earth and sleep with your devil, who would burn in hell for one night in your arms.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Will you really bring it?” she whispered.
“Aye. Lisa, I’d bring you the stars if it would cease your tears.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“His eyes lit appreciatively as her gaze snagged there. “I could pick you up and wrap those lovely long legs of yours around my waist. Slip deep inside you, rock you against me and love you till you lay in my arms and slept like a babe. I will spend each night stretched beside you, teaching you what you want me to teach you. I can feel that you want it from me. Yet it will be at your pace, when you choose. I will wait as long as I must.
“But know this, Lisa—when you are across the dinner table from me on the morrow, in my mind I am pushing you back on a bed. In my fantasy”—he laughed, as if at his own brashness—“you are discovering yourself with my willing body. Who knows, perhaps even laying siege to the heart that beats within this chest.” He thumped his chest with a fist and silently admitted she’d already begun to do that, otherwise he wouldn’t have offered himself. But she didn’t need to know that. He knotted the tartan slowly, never taking his eyes from hers.
“Good night, Lisa. Sleep with the angels.”
Her eyes stung from quick tears. It had been her mother’s nightly benediction: Sleep with the angels. But then he added words her mother never had:
“Then come back to earth and sleep with your devil, who would burn in hell for one night in your arms.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Careful with that thing, lass. Unless it pleases you to ruin my shirts.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“You cannot control me, lass. No one can,” he said wearily. “If I give to you, it is because I choose to give to you. And Lisa, I would choose to give you everything, if you would but permit.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Sleep with the angels, my Brude queen,” he said softly. But come back. This devil needs you like he’s never needed anything before.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“She gave him her most forbidding you-will-obey-me-little-boy-or-die glance. They waged a battle with their glares—his challenging, hers promising divine retribution—until with a gamin grin he leaped to his feet, slipped behind her, and was gone.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“I’m listening,” she hissed. “Like a fool, I’m waiting for you to give me one decent explanation for all of this. Go ahead—tell me more lies.”
He ran a hand over his face and shook his head. “Lass, I have never lied to you. I adore you and there have never been any other women from the future here. And these—he flung a tampon in the air—“cleaning swabs, I cannot fathom why they upset you so greatly, but I assure you I have never let the maids use them.”
Lisa’s brows furrowed. No man could be so stupid. “Cleaning swabs?”
He snatched up a gun and jerked the barrel in her direction, and an unwrapped tampon shot out. It was coated with black from the slow corrosion of the steel. She eyed it for a moment, bent, and plucked it from the floor. “You clear your guns with these?”
He lowered the gun. “Is that not the purpose for which they were designed? I vow I could not conceive of another.”
“Didn’t you read the box?”
“There were too many words I didn’t understand!”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“I’ve drunk too much wine, Circenn. I’m afraid I must find one of those dratted chamber pots.” She sighed morosely. “There are some things I really miss about my century.”
“A chamber pot? Why not use the garderobe?”
“The what?”
“The garderobe.”
“You have garderobes here?” she said stiffly.
He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Not that I wish to pry, but where have you been going?”
“Chamber pots,” she muttered.
“And what have you been doing . . . er . . . ?”
“Dumping them out the window,” she said, prickly as a porcupine. So much for demure privacy. If there was a garderobe, why on earth had Eirren told her to use the chamber pot? Then she realized how mischievous the lad could be. It was just like Eirren to be prankish. “Was there a garderobe at Dunnottar, too?”
“It is you who has been dumping them out the windows? I have been blaming it on my men, making them wash down the stones. Aye, there was one at Dunnottar. I had garderobes put in every keep I own or visit.”
“You never told me.”
“You never asked. How was I to know? When you first arrived here, I wasn’t about to address such private issues. I assumed you had found our garderobe on your own.”
Lisa snorted. Eirren had truly bamboozled her, and her pride had kept her tidily trapped in his jest. “I can’t believe all this time I’ve . . . Oh! Where is the blasted garderobe?”
He told her, biting his lip to keep from smiling. He watched her hips sway gently in her emerald gown as she climbed the stairs. She’d said she loved him. That was promising.
Perhaps it was nearly time to talk to her about loving him forever.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“How many other women have you brought back here—that you needed tampons for? Did I not rate tampons? Was I won so easily that you didn’t have to bribe me with conveniences?”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Need me,” he repeated firmly. “Use me to explore the woman who has never been given the opportunity to live. Take from me, need from me, and satisfy all that curiosity I feel burning in you. And by Dagda, let go of that maidenhead. Do you wish to live and die, never having known passion? Never having tasted what I offer you? Be bold. Take.” He uttered the last word in a low, masculine tone.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Need me, Lisa.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Inwardly, Lisa glowed. She was smart in the fourteenth century.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Use me, Lisa,” he encouraged softly. “Take whatever you want.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“You enjoy looking at me, doona you, Lisa?”
She enjoyed doing more than looking at him. She liked fighting him with her kisses. Tasting the salt and honey of his skin.
With deft fingers, he untied the laces of his linen shirt and shrugged it off over his head. The muscles in his abdomen rippled, the curves of his biceps flexed. “Then look,” he said, his voice rough. “Look your fill. Think you I doona recall how you gazed at me in my bath?” When his wide shoulders were revealed, she shook her head and sucked in a breath.
“St-stop that! What are you doing?”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Lovely pink tongue, by the way. Do you recall how it feels when yours jousts with mine? I haven’t forgotten. I want more.”
Despite her resolve not to, she looked at him, fascinated.
“I want your tongue in my mouth.”
She averted her gaze with effort.
“I want mine all over your body.”
Lisa swallowed. “I am not interested,” she said faintly.
“Doona lie to yourself, Lisa. Doona lie to me. You want me. I can feel it in the air between us.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Are you hungry, lass?” He licked his spoon languidly.
She couldn’t tear her gaze away. “No. I’ve eaten quite enough,” she managed.
“You seem to be watching my dessert most intently. Are you certain there isn’t something else you wish to sate your appetite?”
Besides you to remove your clothing, lie on the table, and let me finger paint you with whipped cream, you mean? “Nope,” she said casually. “Not a thing.” She watched him for a moment; he still had a great deal of dessert left. How was she going to get through this? “Actually,” she said, leaping to her feet, “I’m exhausted and would like to retire.”
He dropped his spoon and moved swiftly to her side. “I will escort you to your chambers,” he murmured, taking her arm and tucking it into his. Lisa shivered. The man was throwing off the heat of a small forge.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“She glanced at him, feeling secure in the distance between them, and smiled. “Thank you,” she murmured.
“For what, lass?” He idly licked a swirl of fluffy topping from his spoon.
“For feeding me,” she replied, assuring herself that the mere glimpse of his tongue flicking over a spoon was not sufficient cause for her blood pressure to rise.
“I’ve fed you every day since you’ve been here and you’ve not thanked me before,” he observed mockingly.
“That’s because you never fed me anything worth eating before.” She watched as he licked a dab of cream from the tip of his spoon. “I think you got it all,” she said uneasily. Suddenly the cavernous room seemed to shrink and she felt as if she were sitting mere inches away from him, not twenty feet. And who had poked up the dratted fire? She fanned at her face with a hand that betrayed not the slightest tremor she was feeling.
“Got what all?” he asked absently, filling his spoon with a mound of berries and cream.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Have you found what you seek, Lisa?” Circenn Brodie asked quietly.
Lisa dropped the papers back into the chest, closed her eyes, and sighed. With a gazillion rooms in this castle, everyone seemed hell-bent on joining her in this one. “I was getting a blanket out of the chest”—she snatched up a plaid that had been folded near the top—“when one of my earring backs came off,” she lied splendidly.
“You are not wearing ear rings, lass,” he said, breaking it into two distinct words, eyeing her ears. “On either ear,” he said impassively.
Lisa clutched at her ears, then nearly assaulted the chest in a frenzied search. “Oh heavens, they both fell off,” she cried. “Can you believe that?”
She flinched when his strong hands settled upon her waist as she bent over the chest. “No,” he said quietly. “I cannot. Why doona you simply tell me what are you looking for, lass? Perhaps I can help you. I know the castle well. It is mine, after all.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“If that was how he asserted his control, she might just have to challenge his authority more often.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“How should I know where the king went?” Lisa rolled her eyes. “I’m the last person who ever knows what’s going on around here.”
“This entire fiasco is your fault for leaving your chamber! Did I not tell you to remain in your chamber? How many times did I tell you to remain in your chamber? Did I tell you at least a dozen times in the past two days not to leave your chamber?”
“Repeating the same question three times, in slightly different ways, does not make me more inclined to answer you. Don’t talk to me as if I’m a child. And don’t even think you’re going to blame this one on me.” Lisa sniffed and averted her face. “I certainly would never have told anyone I was marrying you. Leaving my chamber didn’t get us betrothed. You did that all by yourself.”
Circenn studied her through narrowed eyes, then lowered his head menacingly near hers. “Perhaps I will wed you, lass. Do you know that a wife must obey her husband in all things?” he purred against her ear. He stopped scowling abruptly. “Renaud!” He clapped another Templar on the shoulder and smiled painfully.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch

“Lisa woke with sore, knotted muscles and a kink in her neck from sleeping without a pillow—sensations so tangible they shouted, Welcome to reality.”
― Karen Marie Moning, The Highlander's Touch