Excerpt,
The Heat of the Knight

He reached forward again, shoving entire sections of himself into full muscled view, and then he was wrapping his fists about hunks of coverlet and using it to slide further onto the bed.  He wasn’t but halfway onto the structure and she had her knees nearly to her chin, but she could swear her toes were tingling.

“Why?”

“Because lessons doona’come across well if they’re colored with passion.  Naught much else does, either, now that I think on it.”

“Lessons?” she asked.

He licked his lips. Lisle’s entire body betrayed her as it pulsed.  He saw it.  She knew he did.  “And passion,” he replied, and then he raised himself onto his hands and knees.

“P-p-passion?” She stammered the word and the last half of it was whispered.

“You ken what it is I see in you, Mistress Lisle?” he asked.

“Me?”

He licked his lips again.  Her entire frame moved with it.  It was the most horrid, unexpected, amazing experience, and accompanied by such an increase in her pulse and senses that her eyes went even wider.  He knew all of that, too.

“You. Blue eyes. Endless blue eyes without a hint of guile, and more than a fair share of passion.  Aye.  You.”

He took a crawling motion toward her and the mattress moved with it.  Lisle couldn’t move her eyes.  She was very afraid she’d forgotten how to blink, as well.  He’d reached the area below her curled-up feet, and went to his haunches, sliding with a seamless looking motion.  Then he was lifting one leg and wrapping his arm about it, and there wasn’t a bit of him that wasn’t worth looking over, more than once.  Lisle did that very thing, although her eyes hadn’t received the command.

“You ken what the difference is, yet?” he asked.

“You’re a very handsome man, Monteith.”

One side of his lip lifted.  “I know.  ‘Tis one of my weapons.  Actually, that part of us is the same.”

“What?” she asked. Weapons, she thought.  He was talking weapons.

“We have the same weapon.”  He said it in a soft whisper of sound and moved, putting weight against her feet with the way he leaned forward.

“We do?”

“Oh, aye.  You are a very beautiful woman, Lisle Monteith.  Although there are thousands of beautiful women.  You have something more.  You have fire.”

She licked her lips and watched as a tremor ran him when he saw it.  The thrill of observing it surprised and scared her. She wondered if it was the same with him, and instinctively knew it was.

“Fire,” she said finally.

He nodded slowly and eased himself forward, until he was resting his chin atop her bent knees.  There was a trembling going through where he touched her even with the white coverlet between them.  The tulip cups on her chemise were restrictive and scratching skin that had never felt the like.  Lisle watched him glance there and grimace, before closing his eyes and making his trembling worse.  It was some moments before he had it under control. At least, that’s what she suspected he was doing.  Then he opened his eyes, showing the ale-colored warmth of them.

“And I am going to get severely burnt,” he said finally.