Knowing that he would let her pet him, that in fact he would strip off those jeans in a heartbeat and stretch that hard body over hers and drive into her, made it all the more difficult. With immense effort, she dragged her gaze up to his face.

But looking at his face was no better. His hair was a fall of sleep-tangled midnight silk, his eyes were half-awake, sensually hooded. His face was unshaven, dusted with black stubble; he was a beautiful, rough-around-the-edges, early-morning-sexed man.

“Exactly how old are you?” she asked grumpily, trying to put him back into the perspective of an inhuman being. He looked about thirty, with tiny faint laugh lines at the corners of his eyes.

He shrugged. “Somewhere between five and six thousand. It’s a bit difficult to keep track of when one moves about in time as frequently as I have. Aoibheal is nearly sixty thousand. I am a mere child by my race’s standards.”

“I see.” Whuh. Definitely inhuman. Unfortunately, discovering his age didn’t seem to have diminished her attraction to him in the least. In fact, it seemed somehow, perversely, to have heightened it.

He waved a hand at the breakfast tray. “A croissant perhaps? No? How about some fruit?” He proffered a bowl of freshly cut strawberries, mangoes, and kiwi. “Aren’t you hungry? I wake up starved.” He sounded mildly offended by the fact.

Oh, she was hungry, all right. Unfortunately, the only thing in her bedroom that she wanted to eat was him.

Suddenly she was fourteen again. And there he was, her fantasy fairy, in her bedroom, no less, serving her breakfast in bed. Her gaze fixed on his gold torque and she had to know. “What are you, anyway?” she demanded irritably.

He cocked his head. “I’m a Tuatha Dé Danaan.” Dark brows drew together in a frown. “You know that.”

“I meant,” she clarified peevishly, “your torque.”

“Ah.” Those slanted brows relaxed. “I’m the last prince of the D’Jai House.”

“P-p-p-prince?” she sputtered.

“Yes.” His eyes narrowed. “Problem with that?”

She didn’t trust herself to speak.

“I’m not elitist, if that’s what concerns you. I bed commoners all the time.” A faint, provocative grin.

“I just bet you do,” she muttered. “But not this one.”

“Not yet,” he agreed, far too mildly for her comfort.

“And I’m not a commoner. We don’t have those kinds of class divisions anymore.”

“Actually,” he agreed with her, “that’s true. You’re not a commoner.” He dropped onto the foot of her bed and tucked one leg under the other, sitting cross-legged.

“What do you mean?” she asked warily, watching him carefully. Braced for him to try something. But he made no move toward her, just sat there perfectly at ease on the end of her dainty bed in her frilly, feminine bedroom: a big dark giant of a man, surrounded by lacy pillows and silky embroidered throws, and all the girly-stuff just made him look that much more masculine.

“Drink your coffee and I’ll tell you,” he bribed.

An awful suspicion occurred to her. “Why do you care if I drink it? Is it drugged or something?”

He rolled his eyes, picked up the cup, took several sips, then handed it back to her. “Of course not, Irish. I merely want your day to start well. I want you to be happy.”

“Yeah, right.” But the aroma of fresh-ground coffee teased her nostrils, and something deep inside her sighed hugely and capitulated without further argument. She took the cup and sipped. Heavenly. Hot and dark and sweet, just the way she liked it. He’d even gotten the amount of sugar right. When he glanced away for a moment, out the window, she turned the cup to where he’d sipped, and closed her mouth on the rim.

Coffee in bed—when had anyone ever brought her that? Never, that’s when. And exactly the way she liked it, with exactly what she usually had for breakfast. A croissant and fruit, so she could justify all the candy she tended to snack on the rest of the day, not to mention her weakness for cheese-smothered french fries. And Skyline coneys. And everything else that went straight to her hips. But so long as she had her healthy meal first thing in the morning each day, she felt good about herself for the rest of it.

“Okay, so how am I not a commoner?” He’d piqued her curiosity. Here was a man, er, fairy, who knew more about history than any living person, and from firsthand experience. What might he be able to tell her about her ancestors?

“You’re a Sidhe-seer. In days long gone, in ancient Ireland, thousands of years before the birth of your Christ, they were prized among humans and treated as royalty, for they alone could protect the people from the Unseen. The mightiest warriors in all the lands competed in tournaments for the privilege of a Sidhe-seer’s hand in marriage. Many a man died trying to win such a maiden. She answered to no one, not even human kings, so highly was she regarded. A Sidhe-seer lived in the finest of comfort and, in exchange for her protection, was protected and cared for by her people all the days of her life.”