With fascination, Gwenvael watched Dagmar carefully and precisely rein in her sudden burst of temper. When those grey eyes locked on him again, they were as cold as ice.

“Now that we have that clear, I’ll leave you to finish your bath, Lord Gwenvael.”

She started out, then stopped. “One thing. The men of this land don’t wear their long hair out. They have one plait down their back. It’s custom and to keep the complaining of my siblings down, I’d appreciate if you’d abide by that.”

“Of course.”

She nodded and again started toward the door.

“Tragically,” Gwenvael said to her back, enjoying how she stopped and her entire body tensed.

“Tragically … what?”

“My hair is so long and unmanageable … I’d never be able to braid it properly.” He grinned. “Perhaps you can do it for me.”

“I’ll send a servant to take care of it for you.”

“But as hostess of the house …”

She turned to face him. “As hostess of the house … what?”

“Shouldn’t you tend to your guest?”

Her face showed nothing. Her demeanor didn’t change one bit. But he knew he’d gotten to her because the puppy yelped in her arms and she had to loosen her grip before he stopped squirming.

“If you insist, my lord.”

“Oh”—Gwenvael grinned—“I do insist!”

His groaning seemed awfully excessive and only added to the absurdity of her situation.

Really, she should only be doing this sort of thing for her husband or her kinsmen and only before they rode off into battle. She’d been putting warrior braids in her father’s hair for years. And then when he returned from battle, she’d spend an hour at least trying to get any remaining blood and gore out of it that his “dip” in the river had not touched.

What she should not be doing was braiding the hair of this dragon. Even more appalling, he didn’t simply want her to braid it.

After putting the puppy outside, he’d explained to her as if she were some servant girl, “First comb it for me, love. Carefully. Don’t want you to pull any hairs out, simply get out the tangles.” But he didn’t stop there. “Then three hundred strokes of the brush—each side gets a hundred and then one hundred for the back.”

After he’d explained all that, he’d relaxed in the chair with a fur casually tossed over his naked lap, appearing as if it could and would drop off at any second.

It briefly crossed Dagmar’s mind to use the eating knife she kept tucked in her leather girdle to cut his throat, but that would not be in the best interest of her people. And, more importantly, her. So, instead, she took the ivory comb her father brought back from one of his raids and began to carefully untangle the dragon’s hair. It reached to the floor, so this was no easy task.

Even worse, he never shut up.

Dagmar didn’t know any being on the planet could talk as much as this one dragon. He talked and talked and then talked some more.

Perhaps she wouldn’t have minded so much if he actually said something of interest. The spark of hope she’d had when he mentioned knowing Aoibhell was quickly extinguished. How had the great philosopher that Dagmar based most of her belief system on tolerated an entire dinner with this … this … dragon? He seemed only to manage inane babble about all the women he’d known, which apparently were many!

Eventually Dagmar exchanged the comb for her brush, and that’s when the groaning started and, tragically, did not stop.

“That feels wonderful,” he’d sighed out at one point. “Have you thought of doing this for a living? You’re very good.”

Dagmar kept silent and went through the first one hundred strokes. When she started on the second side, she didn’t think the dragon would notice if she’d brushed fifty times or fifteen hundred. She was wrong.

“That was only seventy-five, love,” he’d told her when she started to move to the back. “Another twenty-five and you’ll be done with that. Then you can do the back.”

Again, she considered killing him but thought better of it.

Three hundred strokes later, Dagmar slammed the brush down. Now to the task of braiding all this hair!

Dagmar began braiding it and was halfway down his back when she said, “It would help with the rest if you’d stand.”

“All right.”

He stood, and Dagmar was greeted with that naked ass. That magnificent naked ass, if she did say so herself. His front had been exquisite, but his back was … reason help her.

“Think you could wrap the fur around you completely?” She feared she may start petting his ass the way she’d petted the puppy’s head.

“I could. But isn’t your question more of a ‘do I want to’?”

“You do know that I and my eating knife have access to much back here and—”

She didn’t even have to finish before he quickly wrapped the fur completely around his hips.

“Thank you, my lord,” she said sweetly.

“Welcome,” he grumbled back.

It took her a bit, but eventually she finished braiding all that golden hair and tied a leather thong to the end. When Dagmar stood, her fingers ached from the task, and the dragon turned to find her flexing her fingers.

He reached for her hand. “Need help with that?”

“No,” she told him, pulling her hand away before he could grasp it. “There are clothes for you—in your room. Evening meal is in another hour. Until then, stay away from the dogs.”