Chris just gave him a bored, blank stare. Sighing heavily, he turned and walked back down the hallway he'd emerged from.
"I swear," Wulf growled in a tone so low she barely heard him, "there are times when I could choke the life out of him."
"Well, you do talk to him like he's four."
Wulf turned on her with a glare so menacing that she actually stepped back from his wrath. "That is none of your business."
Cassandra held her hands up and returned his glare with one of her own. "Excuse me, Mr. Bad-Ass, but you will take another tone to me. I'm not your bitch to heel when you snap. I don't have to stay here."
"Yes you do."
She gave him an arch look. "I don't think so, and unless you take that anger out of your voice when you speak to me, all you're going to see is my heinie as it goes out that door." She pointed to the front door.
The smile he gave her was wicked and cold. "Have you ever tried to run from a Viking? There's a damned good reason why the western Europeans wet themselves whenever our names were mentioned."
His words made her shiver. "You wouldn't dare."
"Feel free to try me."
Cassandra swallowed. Maybe she shouldn't be so cocksure.
Oh, screw that. If he wanted a fight, she was more than ready. A woman who had spent her life fighting Daimons was more than apt to take on any Dark-Hunter.
"Let me remind you of this, Mr. Viking-Warrior-Barbarian-Hoodlum, while your ancestors were scrounging for fire and food, mine were commanding the elements and building an empire that not even the modern world can touch. So don't you dare threaten me with what you're capable of. I'm not about to take that from you or anyone else. Got that?"
To her surprise he laughed at her words and moved to stand in front of her. His eyes were dark, dangerous, and they made her hot in spite of how angry she was at him. The heat of his body incinerated hers.
She was even more breathless now.
More aware of him and that raw, unsettling masculinity that made every feminine part of her pant.
He placed his hand on her cheek. One corner of his mouth was turned up in amusement. The look of him watching her was totally devastating. "In my day, you would have been worth more than your weight in gold."
Then he did the most unexpected thing of all, he dipped his head down and kissed her.
Cassandra moaned at the feral taste of him. His breath mixed with hers as he plundered her mouth, making her hot and throbbing for him.
But then, that wasn't hard. Not when he was so scrumptiously perfect. So manly and fierce.
Her entire body sizzled at his nearness. At the taste of his tongue dancing with hers as he growled low in his throat.
He pulled her closer to him. So close that she could feel the bulge of his cock against her hip. He was hard already and she knew firsthand just how capable a lover he was. That knowledge made her even more breathless. Needy. He ran his hands down her back until he could cup her bottom and press her even closer to him.
Her anger melted under the desire she felt for this man.
"You taste even sweeter now than before," he breathed against her lips.
She couldn't speak. It was true. This was far more intense. Far more scintillating than anything in her dreams. All she wanted to do was strip his clothes off, throw him on the ground, and ride him until they both were sweaty and sated.
Every part of her cried out for her to make that fantasy real.
Wulf couldn't breathe as he felt her womanly curves against him and in his hands.
He wanted her madly. Desperately. Worse, he had taken her enough times in their dreams to know exactly how passionate she was.
She's an Apollite. The highest form of forbidden fruit.
The voice of sanity rushed through his mind.