“Ah, well, the folk of Dover are not born ahorse like some other peoples I could name. You would be very upset if I were thrown.” Sensibly, she dismounted and picked her way down the hillside, tethering the horse to a tree with grass and undergrowth nearby. As she untied the rug, she said over her shoulder, “Is there aught I can do better than you, my lord?” and stuck out her tongue at him.
”I was not born atop a horse,” he tells her in a matter-of-fact-way, gracefully sliding from the saddle, the soles of his shoes crunching against the leaves. “I was born in the snow and then was taught how to ride a horse,” he adds. “Put your tongue back in your mouth,” he scolds, undoing the clasps that held the basket to the horse.
Summer had actually forgotten that her tongue was sticking out, watching him dismount. She wanted nothing so much, in that moment, as to knock him down and kiss him until he rolled them over and took her right there on the forest floor. She stuck it out further, then taunted, “Make me.”