The gods were listening: a tautening of awareness in water and sky.

Tautening, seeing the man who stood before him with a faint smile on his handsome tanned face.

I saw the faintest of flickers there, a tautening in his jaw.

Kirk felt the tautening of the atmosphere on the bridge like a subsonic note.

Bond felt the slight tautening of the skin at the base of his stomach.

The man straightened slightly and Lisa could sense the tautening of powerful muscles across his broad shoulders.

With a conscious effort she eased the tautening in her stomach that was making her feel sick.

They came at approximately two-second intervals, and the tautening of the muscles lasted just about half a second.

But he remembered, as a cold tautening, that a bullet was still the ultimate simplicity which clove all webs.

Only she noticed the slight tautening of his lips, and she gloated inwardly.

Instantly, as she sensed the tautening of his muscles, she wished the words unsaid.

The rope tautening stopped me.

Sitting alone, he lit his cigarette, the first of the day, and there came that faint swimming in the head, a tautening of the gut.

However, the suspension and the tautening of the numerous metal strings (which, it is said, numbered an astonishing 790) were much more elaborate.

There was a tautening of the muscles in his stomach and a fluttering, excited feeling in his belly.

His reflexes acted instantaneously, a tautening of every nerve even before his flesh had started to creep.

He caught another change of expression, a slight tautening of the corners of her mouth, that told him she had known that much, as well.

Nodding, Isobel jerked the belt upwards; the tautening of the strap still higher between her legs sent waves of dark pleasure through Elena, like a secret promise.

I saw the movement reflected in the EV lenses of Yukio's muscle clones, saw it registered with minute tautening of their faces beneath the smoked glass.

Standing on the trap, leg-manacled and arm-manacled, the knot against the neck, the black cap drawn, they will drop me down until the momentum of my descending weight is fetched up abruptly short by the tautening of the rope.

Wavewatcher, who'd hunted the whale whose every part was valuable to the Mariners, was listened to with respect, but Skewerskean's chantey's made work easier, whether he sang a hand-overhand to synchronize the tautening of the braces, or a long-haul ditty for heavier work.