He wasn’t prepared to go there. Not even in his own mind.

Time for distraction. For both of them.

“Tell me about the dream,” he commanded.

Her fingers, which had unwittingly begun to stroke through the strands of his hair, pulled away with a sharp motion. “God, you never give up.”

He flashed a fierce grin. “Never.”

She briefly closed her eyes before heaving a deep sigh. “Fine. There was a woman.”

Keeping his arms locked about her slender body, Cezar intently studied her face. Anna tended to say far more with her expression than her words.

“What did she look like?”

She gave a lift of her shoulder. “Beautiful, with red hair and green eyes.”

His eyes narrowed, a chill spreading through his body. “What was she doing?”

“She was sitting on a gold throne, and there was another woman there, an old woman who was lying on a red carpet.” She grimaced at the memory. “Her mouth was bleeding.”

“Was she dead?”

“I don’t think so.”

His hands ran an absent path up her back. “Something made you scream, Anna. What was it?”

She shuddered, fear flashing through her eyes. “The woman sitting on the throne…she seemed to be staring straight at me…and then…”

“And then?”

“And then she said she was going to rip out my heart. I believed her.”

She trembled, and pressing his hand to the back of her head, Cezar tucked her close to his body. There could be no doubt the woman in her dreams had been Morgana le Fay. And that the woman was determined to see Anna dead.

Never.

The word branded onto Cezar’s heart. He would kill anything, anyone who dared to harm Anna.

“No one’s going to be ripping out your heart, querida,” he rasped, his voice raw. “That much I can promise you.”

She gave a choked laugh at his arrogant pledge, but thankfully made no move to try to pull away.

“You’re so certain you can protect me?”

“Yes.” His lips brushed her forehead. “But beyond that, you’re a dangerous woman in your own right. I still have the aching ribs to prove it.”

She tilted back her head to meet his smoldering gaze, the fear fading from her eyes. “A dangerous woman, eh?”

“Absolutely.”

“I like that.”

He deliberately brushed his arousal against her hip. “Me too.”

“I can tell,” she said dryly.

“What can I say? Dangerous women are hot.”

“You think every woman is hot.” She frowned as he gave a sharp, humorless laugh at her ridiculous words. “What’s so funny?”

One hundred and ninety-five years without a woman. Without the least stirring of desire. And now that he had at long last recovered his mojo, it only worked for a female who was determined to keep him celibate.

Yeah, he was quite the ladies’ man.

“Dios,” he breathed. “If you only knew.”

“Knew what?”

He gave a shake of his head. “Tell me of your life, querida,” he instead prompted. “You said that you’ve lived quietly, but you must have done something to keep yourself occupied.”

She studied his face, surrounded by the heavy fall of his black hair. “Are you really interested or are you just trying to distract me so you can stay in my bed?”

He smiled, not bothering to hide his fully extended fangs. “Both.”

“There isn’t much to tell.”

“Humor me, por favor.”

She rolled her eyes at his insistence. Cezar ignored the taunting gesture. She was warm and soft in his arms, and for the moment he wanted to think about nothing but the sensation of her beating heart against his chest and the scent of her warm skin.

“I moved around a lot, which wasn’t all bad since I managed to see a great deal of the world over the years,” she at last confessed in a soft voice. “Venice, Amsterdam, Cairo…I even spent a few memorable months in Tokyo before traveling to America.”

“How did you survive?”

“I took whatever job I could find. In the early days I usually worked as a maid, since it was the only respectable job open to a woman. Later I began waiting tables at cheap restaurants.” She grimaced. “A job I don’t recommend to anyone. Even today the smell of hot grease makes my stomach heave.”

Cezar resisted the urge to skim his hands over that stomach. Or maybe he would skim his lips over that stomach. Oh…yes. Definitely his lips. And then he could explore down to the tiny thong and between her legs…

“What of men?” he abruptly demanded.

Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

An odd tension gripped him as he suddenly realized just how important her answer was to him.

“Did you ever marry?”

“Good God, no,” she breathed in shock.

“Why not? You’re an incredibly beautiful woman.” He gently cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing over the fullness of her lower lip. “I don’t doubt that you’ve had to fight the men off.”

Her tongue peeked out to touch the precise spot his thumb had caressed, sending a zing of electricity through his body.

That tongue could no doubt make a vampire howl in bliss.

The mere thought of it was nearly enough to make him howl.

Swallowing a groan, Cezar forced himself to concentrate on her low words.

“And just how do you expect me to explain the fact that I’m some bizarre Superman clone?” she demanded.

“Don’t you mean Wonder Woman?”

“That’s not funny.” She gave his arm a pinch. “I couldn’t risk being close to anyone.”

A strange pain lanced through him. “Did you want to be close to someone? Was there someone special?”

She shrugged. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.” His teeth ground together. “It matters.”

Their gazes tangled and for a moment Cezar feared she might refuse to answer him. Then, with a frustrated shake of her head she conceded defeat.

“No, there was no one special. I’ve been completely and utterly alone for…for what seems like forever. Are you happy?”

He was more than happy. He was fiercely pleased by the notion she hadn’t given her heart to some unworthy bastard.

He was also smart enough to keep his satisfaction to himself.

Smoothing his hand down her hair, he pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. “I didn’t mean to upset you, querida.”

She gave a snort of disbelief, her eyes narrowing. “And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you have some…” She frowned as she struggled with the appropriate word. “Mate hanging around in a damp cave?”

A slow, wicked smile touched his lips at her grudging curiosity. “I have no mate.”

“Why not?”

His lips skimmed down her cheek to nibble at the corner of her mouth. “Some things, Anna Randal, are worth waiting for.”

Chapter 6

Anna’s heart was lodged somewhere near her tonsils as she felt the light scrape of Cezar’s fangs against the edge of her mouth.

This was insanity.

No. Waking to discover a gorgeous, heart-stopping, drool-worthy vampire in her bed was insanity.

Quivering with the need to feel the aching pleasure of his kiss was full out la-la land.

Unfortunately, her body didn’t give a damn about the sanity of responding to Cezar’s expert touch. It only knew that it had waited almost two hundred years to feel the cool pleasure of those fingers exploring her trembling curves and the erotic satisfaction of his fangs sliding into her flesh.

The dark, sweet craving intensified as his head bent lower, finding the tip of her straining nipple beneath the lace of her gown.

A groan caught in her throat as sharp-edged bliss shuddered through her body. His tongue was teasing the sensitive bit of flesh, flicking and stroking until her back arched in a silent plea.

Dammit, she had promised herself this wouldn’t happen. There was no way in hell she was going to let this man think she was an oversexed tart who would spread her legs every time he passed through her life.

A promise easily made when Cezar had been nothing more than a painful memory. She’d convinced herself that it had been her innocence that made her so susceptible to the delicious vampire. After all, she had spent two centuries resisting the various men (some of them downright edible) who had desired to lure her to their beds. She was older, wiser, and capable of controlling her desires.

Ha.

She was going up in flames as his fingers coasted down the back of her thighs, tugging up the gown with a determination that was unmistakable. Even worse, the soft words he muttered beneath his breath as his lips searched out her other nipple were drugging her mind, making her forget precisely why she was supposed to be saying no.

He had to be casting a spell over her, she fuzzily told herself. That was why her fingers were digging into his arms until she was drawing blood, and why her core was so hot and wet that she thought she might come at the slightest touch.