If you can't, I'll pick you up in front." She tried hard, but she failed; so he put both arms under hers and lifted her.
"Am I welcome ?" he asked.

And she nodded.
Fresh from killing a man--with a man's blood on his broken sword and the sweat of fighting not yet dry on him--he held a woman in his arms for the first time in his life.

His hand had been steady when it struck the blow under Jaimihr's ribs, but now it trembled.

His eyes had been stern and blazing less than two minutes before; now they looked down into nothing more dangerous than a woman's eyes and grew strangely softer all at once.

His mouth had been a hard, tight line under a scrubby upper lip, but his lips had parted now a little and his smile was a boy's--not nervous or mischievous--a happy boy's.
She smiled, too.