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I hadn’t even noticed and my face suddenly heated in embarrassment as I took them in. Blond strands brushed his shoulders and his eyes were hidden by gold-framed glasses that blended perfectly with his brown skin.

“Ya look pretty good as a blond, Rasmus. The glasses make ya nearly invisible. Ya would have been completely invisible if ya hadn’t done so well picking out the rest of yer clothes.”

His chuckle was low. “You didn’t even notice my wig, did you?”

Answering him back would be too dangerous so I refrained from saying anything. “Our ride should be here any moment. I didn’t want to try parking downtown.”

My effort to spare myself embarrassment still cost me my dignity because he grinned in that knowing way men do when they know ya were checking them out. I might have been forty instead of twenty, but strong sexual attraction was one thing that still felt the same as it did the first time I ever felt it.

As soon as I collected my phone from the kitchen, it dinged to let me know our car was outside. The two of us exited the house and climbed into the backseat, greeting the pleasant man who picked us up.

The ride downtown was nearly silent. Rasmus filled up the backseat with his large maleness while I did my best to pretend not to notice. When we got to the museum, he held the car door for me while I slid out. He took my hand and held it as we walked inside. I felt a strange sense of otherworldliness wash over me. The energy in this place chaotically swirled in the air around us.

“Do ya feel anything strange in here?”

“I’m hyper-aware of you,” Rasmus said, squeezing my fingers.

My head whipped around to stare up at him, but I didn’t pull away from his grip. “No, I was talking about the weird energy that makes ya feel like a thousand people are waiting for some tyrant king to announce whose head is next to be separated from their shoulders. There is future dread here.”

Rasmus pulled me closer to his side. “Do you experience these strange feelings often?”

“No, because I don’t often visit places like this. What I usually feel in museums is centuries of regret. The Dagda said that’s the one energy that hangs around forever. He said that’s the reason a person needs to accumulate as few regrets as possible in their lifetime.”

“All I feel is death, decay, and lethargy. If I were a lion, I’d run past this place and look for live prey somewhere else.”

I glanced up at him in alarm. Did all guardians feel they were lions? “Do ya always think like a predator?”

“Yes. Doesn’t everyone?” Rasmus asked.

For a moment, all I could do was stare at him. “There’s a glitch in your matrix.”

“You say the strangest things and yet I still find them sexy.”

A giggle of happiness betrayed me, but I lifted my chin. “Stop talking like this is a real date.”

“Until we find the trouble you came to find, I can pretend anything I want to pretend.”

“Ya’re hanging yer hopes on the wrong woman, Rasmus.”

“We are meant for each other. I knew it the moment I saw you.”

“Well, the first moment I saw ya I thought ya were a fool for physically trying to take down a troll instead of capturing him the sneaky way.”

“He was my first troll. But I know better now because I’m a quick learner.”

“So ya say but I’ve yet to be convinced.”

Rasmus smiled at me. It was the kind of smile a woman waited all her life to see on a man’s mouth. “I can’t wait to get a chance to convince you how right I am about us.”

When he stared down at me with a challenge in his eyes, I felt a fluttering in my stomach that I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

Of all the men I’d met recently, why was this one the only one my body wanted? He was a guardian. He was not some random thirty-two-year-old who dropped from the sky into my life. No matter what his brethren had done to the material he was made of, the core of the creature looking at me with undisguised lust was the same one I’d met before. His energy was the same.

Regardless of how much I was beginning to like this revised version, I refused to admit Rasmus had been right to put us both through this.

We found our way into the bowels of a place that was much bigger inside than it looked from the outside. There were rooms and rooms full of special displays. Luckily, someone had left signs that pointed the way.

The end of our seemingly endless trek finally led us to a small auditorium. We showed our tickets to the person at the door and then entered to take our seats. Below us on a small stage stood the woman from my vision.