His eyes snapped fire as if he thought her braid were some kind of abomination. "I don't like it. Your hair is too beautiful to be bound."
He ran his hands through her freed curls and his gaze instantly turned tender. Soft. He brushed her hair with his fingers until it covered her bared breasts. His breath fell against her skin while he teased her nipples with her curls and his touch.
"There now," he said, his Norse accent smooth and lilting. "A more beautiful woman, I've never seen."
Her body molten, Cassandra could do nothing but watch him watch her.
He was stunningly handsome. Masculine in a barbaric way that made the woman in her thrum with primal need.
It was obvious this was a dangerous man. Basic. Hard. Unyielding.
"What is your name?" she asked as he dipped his head to nibble her neck. His whiskered cheeks prickled her flesh, raising chills all over her as he tasted her.
"Wulf."
She shivered as she realized the source of this midnight fantasy. "Like Beowulf?"
He smiled hungrily, flashing her a brief glimpse of his long, canine teeth. "Actually, I'm more like Grendel. I come out only at night to devour you."
She shivered again as he gave one long, deliciously wicked lick to the underside of her breast.
Now this was a man who knew well how to pleasure a woman. And better yet, he didn't seem to be in a hurry to finish, but rather took his time with her.
If there was any doubt before, that alone told her this was a dream!
Wulf ran his tongue over her soft skin and delighted in her murmurs of pleasure as he tasted her salty-sweet flesh. He loved the warm, soothing feel and smell of this woman.
She was delectable.
He hadn't had a dream like this in centuries. It was so real, and yet he knew it wasn't.
She was only a figment of his starving imagination.
Even so, she touched him in a way he'd never before known. And she smelled so good... like fresh roses and powder.
Womanly. Soft.
A tender morsel just waiting for him to sample her. Or better still, devour.
Pulling back, he returned to her hair that reminded him of the color of sunshine. The fiery gold strands captivated him as the curls wrapped themselves around his fingers and tugged at the edges of his stone heart. "You have such beautiful hair."
"So do you," she said as she brushed his hair back from his face.
She scraped his whiskers with her fingernail as she traced the curve of his jaw. Gods, how long had it been since he'd last had a woman?
Three, four months?
Three, four decades?
It was hard to keep track of time when it stretched out interminably. All he knew was that he had long ago given up the dream of having a woman like this under him.
Since no woman could remember him, he refused to take decent women into his bed.
All too well, he knew what it was like to wake up after sex and have no idea what had been done to him. To lie there wondering how much of it had been real and how much had been a dream.
So, he had relegated his encounters to women he could pay for their services, and then only when he absolutely could stand his celibacy no more.
But this one had remembered his kiss.