Okay, so he wore his human form, but still, his way of moving silently continued to creep her out, especially when she considered what a big guy he was. If she couldn’t walk across the creaky old wooden floors in her supersoft fuzzy socks without making a huge racket, then he sure as heck shouldn’t be able to pull it off. It just went to show that there really was no justice in the world (she had suspected this since she was five, and the kindergarten teacher had let Ari Milner play with the wooden blocks even though Kylie had clearly gotten to them first).
Luckily, she possessed decent peripheral vision, or she would have dropped her soda when he spoke and had to clean up shards of broken glass on an empty and insufficiently caffeinated stomach. “You yell ‘Boo!’ at me, and I’m so not sharing my bagels,” she warned.
Dag paused. “What is a bagel, and why would I want a share in yours?”
A thought flashed in Kylie’s head for a split second, just long enough for her to wonder if he thought she was sexually propositioning him. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from bursting out with a belly laugh. Or, you know, jumping his bones.
“Oh, Goliath, you really need to get out more. Here, I got this.” She pulled out another bagel and waved it under his nose. “This, my friend, is manna from heaven, the greatest gift my people have bestowed upon the earth. Watch and learn.”
The second bagel joined hers in the toaster, and she leaned back against the counter to wait for the achievement of golden-brown deliciousness. Dag alternated between eyeing her and the toaster oven in silence. Not much of a talker, was he?
Despite her amusement at the idea that she had used bread products as a tool of seduction, Kylie had to admit that her reaction to the hulking man-shaped monster in her house hadn’t been some sort of post-traumatic stress. He really was just as hot as she remembered, which in itself felt totally weird; not because he wasn’t human, but because he so wasn’t her type.
Kylie knew her people, and she always dated among them. Her boyfriends, hookups, and crushes had always been geeks of one variety or another, either compunerds like herself, or sci-fi fanatics, or academic head cases like Bran. For heaven’s sake, even with all the eye candy in the Star Trek movie remakes, her favorite of the group continued to be Simon Pegg. His character in another movie, Paul, was the closest she’d ever seen to her dream man on the big screen. So why did this giant, muscular, rough-faced, and gruff-voiced behemoth get her panties in a twist every time they wound up in the same room together?
Testosterone poisoning, her inner voice grumbled. Only logical explanation. For pity’s sake, open a window or something before you lose control and try to feel him up. Or worse.
Her inner dialog had so distracted her that she nearly jumped out of her skin when the beep of the toaster cut into the silence. Cheeks flaming, she turned to grab a couple of plates from the cabinet, and hopefully a good handful of her rapidly disappearing self-control.
“I’d ask if you want butter or schmear, but since this is your first bagel, you get schmear,” she babbled as she reached into the refrigerator. “It’s only right to get the full experience. Well, fullish. I don’t have any lox in the house. I personally find fish disgusting, especially for breakfast.”
“Are you speaking this Yiddish language again?”
Kylie chuckled. “No, that was all full-on American.” She thrust his plate at him and prepared her own bagel. “You want anything to drink? Coke? I have coffee, too. I don’t drink it, but it seemed polite to keep it in case I ever got company. I have one of those little cup machine thingies.”
Dag lifted his gaze from the white-topped brown delicacy on his plate to blink at her. His mouth opened and closed once before he actually spoke. “More American?” He sounded pretty unsure.
“Yeah, you sound like a man who needs caffeine, and you look like a coffee drinker to me. Hang on.”
She flipped on the machine that lurked mostly abandoned on her counter, then rummaged through a drawer beneath it. It took a minute, but she finally found a K-Cup of indeterminate variety and fitted it into the brewer with a small grunt of satisfaction. Like she would know the differences among the twelve bazillion types of coffee in the world. Dag could take what she gave him and be happy.
A few moments later, she passed him a steaming mug of dark liquid, grabbed her own breakfast, and headed for the office. “Come on,” she called over her shoulder. “This is a working brunch. We’ll eat in here.”
“I am unfamiliar with that term. ‘Brunch.’ Is it more of your Yiddish?” Dag settled in the cat’s chair once again and sniffed his coffee before taking a sip. Kylie decided to interpret his ensuing grunt as approval, given that he went right back for more.