I digested that for a minute, about to ask another question when Baltic emerged from the spare room. He wore a pair of dusky brown leather leggings and boots that went up to midthigh, and he bore a long, stained leather sheath. In one hand he carried a black tunic and something that looked like a small curved chest piece, one that had seen better days. He tossed the chest piece onto a chair, and as I stared in astonishment, pulled a long sword out of the sheath, balancing it in his hand for a moment before nodding. “I am glad Pavel was able to retrieve my cuirass and sword before Constantine destroyed Dauva. Now, chérie, you will cease thinking of the past and focus on the present.”
I continued to stare for a moment, tears pricking painfully to life behind my eyes. “If I wasn’t head over heels in love with you already, I would fall madly in love with you right at this moment.”
He looked down at himself for a moment before cocking an eyebrow. “It is good, then, that I kept the clothing I wore when Thala resurrected me. I had no idea it would arouse you in such a manner.”
“It’s not the clothes,” I said, setting down the caramel and taking his face in my hands, pulling him down so I could press kisses all over it.
“Then what?” he asked, placing the sword on Brom’s worktable, wrapping both arms around me, and hoisting me upward. “Why do you weep?”
“It’s the fact that you would go to all this trouble just to please me. Oh, Baltic, I don’t need you in leggings, although they are even more sexy on you now than in the past. I don’t want you to be the man you used to be—I desire you as you are, not as you were. My heart has always been yours, and always will be.”
“That is as it should be,” he said with a smug look that just made me smile. “But I do not mind indulging the less strange of your fantasies. Do you have a chemise?”
I blinked at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“I cannot make love to you in the tunnel under Dauva while we are in England. This basement will have to suffice as the location for your current fantasy of the time I took you in the tunnel.” He paused and thought for a moment. “The first time I took you in the tunnel. It was a favorite trysting place of yours.”
“Was it? I don’t . . . Baltic, I don’t expect you to reenact this. I wasn’t turned on by the idea of our past selves going at it in a secret tunnel.”
He raised one eyebrow.
“All right, I was just a little, but not so much that I needed for you to dig out all your old things and the sword. Which I should point out is now a museum piece, so you should probably treat it a little better than you are. The scabbard looks like it’s about to fall apart.”
“Do you wish for me to make love to you here or not?” he asked impatiently.
I was about to say yes when something occurred to me. “You’re always talking about my fantasies, not that I have any, or at least not like you seem to think I do. But what about you?”
His brows pulled together in a puzzled frown. “What about me?”
“What fantasies do you have?”
“I am a wyvern. I don’t need fantasies,” he said with a matter-of-fact finality.
I touched the tips of my fingers to his bare chest, lightly stroking them down the swells of his muscles. “Oh, surely there must be one or two little ones wyverns are allowed?”
His eyes widened just a little. “I enjoyed the caramel.”
“Yes, but that wasn’t your fantasy. What would make you crazy with lust, Baltic?” I breathed on a nipple, flicking it with my tongue.
He sucked in his breath.
“What would push you over the edge?” I let my fingers trailer lower, to his belly, swirling them in an intricate pattern, enjoying the way the muscles contracted there.
He stopped breathing.
I smiled, and leaned close, speaking against his lips. “What would drive you to distraction?”
“I am a dragon.” His eyes glittered brightly despite the dimness of the room. His stance changed subtly, from relaxed to tense, as if his entire body was gathering itself.
My fingers brushed the front of his leather pants, caressing the growing length of him. “And what do dragons like?”
“The hunt,” he said, his voice low and rough, and so filled with erotic promise, it made me shiver with anticipation. “Mates run. Dragons hunt.”
I nipped his bottom lip. “Do you want me to—”
“RUN!” he snarled, smoke curling out of his nose.
I didn’t wait around to tease him any more. I simply bolted up the stairs, smiling to myself that I had found a fantasy I could fulfill for him. The house held no attraction for me, so I ran straight for the garden, planning on leading him on a merry chase through the shrubs to the small, growth-protected woods that edged one side of the estate.
The night air was a bit chilly, as summer was moving toward autumn, but the cool, crisp air was pleasant on my heated skin as I wove through the long shadows of the garden, vaulting over a brick fence to the verge that led into the woods.
There wasn’t a lot of light from the moon, and even less when I entered the minute forest. A sense of déjà vu struck me as I dashed from tree to tree, trying desperately to calm my breathing so Baltic wouldn’t hear me.
“Always you run to the forest,” a voice called out with mock dismay. “The silver dragon influences still grip you, eh, chérie?”
If he thought I was going to answer him and let him pinpoint my direction, he was crazy. I moved as silently as possible, clutching willow and ash trees, peering around them into the dark gloom of the woods, searching for any signs of movement.
“You do not answer me? You have learned since that first time. But I found you then, Ysolde, and I will find you now.”
I wanted badly to tell him that I expected him to find me, but instead glided to a large alder tree, the base of which was at least four feet wide. With another smile, I peeled off my shirt and draped it on a branch before moving to the next tree, away from his voice.
“I can smell you, mate. Your scent betrays you.” His voice resonated within me, calling to me, urging me to find him, but I simply peeled off my linen pants and left them behind on a dense clump of laurel.
Oh, he was going to have to do better if he thought I was going to rise to that puny bait.
An owl hooted directly in front of me, making me jump and glare into the shadows. Was that a real owl, or was it Baltic teasing me?
It hooted again, and with one last wary look at the silhouetted tree where the noise originated, I moved on.
“Can’t be him. He’s behind me,” I murmured under my breath, moving silently into the deepest part of the woods, careful of where I stepped, avoiding the branches that tried to trap my hair in a tangle.
“What is this? A shirt? Are your breasts bare, Ysolde? Do you wish I was caressing them? Licking them?”
I smiled, pleased that my ploy had worked. Now I knew exactly where he was.
“Trousers, too, eh? You taunt me, mate.”
Little night sounds surrounded us—the distant hum of a car, nocturnal insects announcing their availability for mating, and a small chorus of frogs from a nearby stream expounding on whatever it is frogs expound on at night, all punctuated by the occasional squeak of a night bird or a startled rodent. Beyond that, a faint sound of rustling was audible, as if a large man was brushing through the undergrowth searching for more garments.
I smashed a mosquito on my arm and headed for the far edge of the woods, planning what I would say to Baltic when he eventually found me sitting in bed.
The owl called again, this time from slightly ahead of me, near three willows that had twined around each other when they were saplings. “Must be a mating pair,” I murmured as I passed the trees.
“Yes, we are.”
I spun around and glared at the man who leaned casually against the entwined tree trunks, his arms crossed. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?”