He didn't want to think about the future. It was too bleak. Too painful. He should have kept her out of his heart. Every day he tried and every day he found her there even deeper than before.
"Cassandra Tryggvason," he whispered, testing her new name.
"It has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"
He touched her lips with his fingers. Like her, they were soft and delicate. Inviting. "Are you happy?"
"Yes." And yet her green eyes were tinged by sadness.
How he wished he could erase that from her forever.
Cassandra stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him. Wulf groaned at the taste of her. At the way her hand felt on the back of his neck while her long, graceful fingers tugged at his hair.
Her rose scent went through him, making him drunk and hot. "You are beautiful, my Cassandra."
Cassandra shivered at his low-voiced words. She loved it whenever he referred to her as his.
Taking her hand that was tied to his, he led her toward the bedroom.
Cassandra bit her lip as she watched him. He was so tall and devastating. He laid her carefully on the bed, then paused.
"How are we supposed to take off our clothes with this on our wrists?"
"My sleeves unzip."
"Mine don't."
"Then you're going to be wearing that tuxedo for the night. Ew!"
"Ew?" he asked playfully. "Suddenly I'm ew?"
She moaned as he cupped her chin and nipped her lips with his teeth. "Ew to the extreme," she teased breathlessly.
She felt him unzip the back of her dress slowly as if savoring the anticipation of her being naked with him.
"You know, in Viking tradition, we'd have had witnesses for this."
She shivered as his hot hand skimmed her bared skin. "No offense, I am so glad this isn't in your lifetime."
"Me too. I'd have to kill any man who saw just how beautiful you really are. If they saw you, I know they'd be dreaming of you, and that I could never allow."
She closed her eyes, savoring those words, as he pulled her dress from her.
He paused only long enough to kiss her bulging stomach. The minute his lips grazed her, she felt the light, fluttering movement inside.
"Oh, my God," she breathed. "I just felt the baby!"
He pulled back. "What?"
Her eyes welling up, she placed her hand over the spot his lips had touched, wanting to feel the baby again. "I felt him," she repeated. "Just now."
Pride shone brightly in Wulf's eyes as he dipped his head and kissed her stomach again. He nuzzled her bare skin with his whiskered cheek.
Cassandra should have felt embarrassed to have a man so perfectly formed nuzzling her when she was the size of a whale, but she didn't. It was so comforting to have him with her.
He was her champion. Not because he had saved her life, but because of the way he stayed with her now. The way he held her when she cried. The way he comforted her.
He was her strength. Her courage.