Free At the Queen's Summons by Susan Wiggs

corner of his mouth were tilted up in wry irony. She released her breath in an explosive sigh. “I suppose that is the price of being an outrageous and constant liar.”
    â€œWhat is that?” he asked.
    â€œWhen I finally tell the truth, you don’t believe me.”
    â€œAnd why would you be thinking I don’t believe you?”
    â€œThat look, Your Worship. You seem torn between laughing at me and summoning the warden of Bedlam.”
    The eyebrow inched up even higher. “Actually, I am torn between laughing at you and kissing you.”
    â€œI choose the kissing,” she blurted out all in a rush.
    Both of his eyebrows shot up, then lowered slowly over eyes gone soft and smoky. He gripped her hands anddrew her forward so that she came up on her knees. The bedclothes pooled around her, and the thin shift whispered over her burning skin.
    â€œI choose the kissing, too.” He lifted his hand to her face. The pad of his thumb moved slowly, tantalizingly, along the curve of her cheekbone and then downward, slipping like silk over marble, to touch her bottom lip, to rub over the fullness until she almost did not need the kiss in order to feel him.
    Almost.
    â€œHave you ever been kissed before, colleen?”
    The old bluster rose up inside her. “Well, of c—”
    â€œPippa,” he said, pressing his thumb gently on her lips. “This would be a very bad time to lie to me.”
    â€œOh. Then, no, Your Immensity. I have never been kissed.” The few who had tried had had their noses rearranged by her fist, but she thought it prudent not to mention that.
    â€œDo you know how it’s done?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œPippa, the truth. You were doing so well.”
    â€œI’ve seen it happen, but I don’t know how it’s done in actual practice.”
    â€œThe first thing that has to happen—”
    â€œYes?” Unable to believe her good fortune, she bounced up and down on her knees, setting the bed to creaking on the rope latticework that supported the mattress. “This is really too exciting, my lord—”
    His thumb stopped her mouth again. “—is that you have to stop talking. And for God’s sake don’t narrate everything. This is supposed to be a gesture of affection, but you’re turning it into a farce.”
    â€œOh. Well, of course I didn’t mean—”
    Again he hushed her, and at the same moment a log fellin the grate. The brief flare of sparks found, just for an instant, a bright home in the centers of his eyes. She moaned in sheer wanting but remembered at last not to speak.
    â€œAh, well done,” he whispered, and his thumb moved again, with subtle, devastating tenderness, slipping just inside her mouth and then emerging to spread moisture along her lip.
    â€œIf you like, you can close your eyes.”
    She mutely shook her head. It was not every day she got a kiss from an Irish chieftain, and she was not about to miss a single instant of giddy bliss.
    â€œThen just look up at me,” he said, surging closer to her on the bed. “Just look up, and I’ll do the rest.”
    She tilted her chin up as he lowered his head. His thumb slid aside to make room for his lips, and his mouth brushed over hers, softly, sweetly, with a sensation that made raw wanting jolt to life inside her.
    She made a sound, but he caught it with his mouth and pressed down gently, until their lips were truly joined. His deft fingers rubbed with tender insistence along her jawline, and his lips pushed against the seam of hers.
    Open.
    Here was something she had not learned from spying on couples pumping away in the alleys of Southwark or groping one another in the shadows of the pillars of St. Paul’s.
    His tongue came into her, and she made a squeak of surprise and delight. Her hands drifted upward, over his chest and around behind his neck. She wanted this closeness with a staggering, overwhelming