“Warn them of what?” When he growled at her, Kylie bounced twice on her balance ball and contemplated using a third one to launch herself straight at the grumpy gus’s head. Somehow, she restrained herself. “No, seriously,” she said. “Warn them of what? That the Order is planning something big? Um, from what I remember of our last conversation, I think that’s exactly what they warned us about, so I hardly think they’re unaware. Until we figure out what the plan is, as well as other piddling little details like who, when, and where, we have no new information to share.”
The glare he shot in her direction could have peeled paint, which made Kylie doubly happy that she rarely bothered with makeup. His lip curled back, revealing a long fang he should not have been carrying around in human form. Pfft. After the last eighteen hours it was going to take a lot more than that to scare her. She’d pulled on her big-girl panties.
Which looked exactly like her other panties, but with a tich more “fuck you” in the elastic.
“What?” She knew she shouldn’t taunt the poor Guardian, but somehow she just couldn’t resist. This was probably why her bubbeh always told her to stay away from tigers with tails. “You know I’m right. You just hate when that happens. Well, get used to it, snookums, because otherwise you are in for a bumpy ride.”
He stalked over to her. Her grin lasted about three of his long strides. By the fourth, it had slid somewhere into her stomach along with about a billion gypsy moths. That was also when his big, rough hands closed around her and drew her to her feet.
“I swear by the Light that I will find a way to teach you to hold that tongue, female,” he growled and hauled her against him. “Beginning now.”
In one fell swoop—and boy, did she have a new and much deeper understanding of that expression now!—his head dipped and his mouth settled over hers with angry determination. Less than a heartbeat later, her smile waved good-bye to the moths and dove right into those panties of hers, proving once and for all that she was, indeed, a very big girl.
Oy, for a thousand-year-old stone statue who’d barely had time to kill things between naps, let alone to date much, the man could kiss. And kiss. And kiss.
He ate her up with more relish than the bagel and the pastrami combined, seeming to feast on her like Shabbat dinner. His lips felt hot and firm, demanding a response that she had no trouble giving him. She could lose her mind in this kind of kiss, hungry, possessive, and oh so deep.
He entered her mouth and dove straight for her soul, teasing it out with little nips of his teeth and a wicked, taunting tongue. He stroked and sucked and ate at her until she moaned and clutched at him like a drunk on a bender. The comparison seemed apt, given the way her head spun, her balance deserted her, and her skin felt flushed with heat.
More than the kiss had her thoughts in a whirl. Until a few seconds ago, Kylie had been pretty well convinced that Dag hated her, that he tolerated her only because Wynn and Knox had insisted they work together and because he found it unsporting to kill defenseless humans. He certainly spent enough time looking at her like he found her to closely resemble a particularly annoying sort of insect. Like a flea with a vaudeville act, or something. But if this was how he kissed women he hated, she figured the ones he liked must spontaneously combust before he got within ten feet of them.
About three seconds before Kylie figured her socks would start smoking, he finally pulled back and stared at her. It took a few seconds for her eyes to uncross and focus again, but when they did, all she could read from his expression was the same shock and confusion she felt herself. Was a kiss that good a novel experience for him, too?
Dag snatched his hands from her and stepped back, leaving Kylie swaying on her feet like a birch tree in a windstorm. No lie. She actually had to reach out and put a hand on the desk to steady herself while the big lug just stared at her as if she’d been the one to knock him over the head with a lust hammer. How unfair was that?
When the room stopped spinning and her fine motor control finally returned, Kylie cleared her throat and opened her mouth. “Dag, I—”
“I will check security outside. No more drude will surprise us this day,” he grumbled approximately one-half second before he fled out the door like a scared little girl.
Oh, hell, who was Kylie kidding? She didn’t blame him a bit. A few minutes alone to regroup sounded like a mighty fine idea to her. As did a stiff drink, a slap upside the head, and a long, cold shower.
Groaning, she dropped back onto her balance ball, overshot her mark, and landed tokhes over teakettle halfway under her desk. Make that two stiff drinks. And she’d pour herself one in just a minute.
Right after she got the feeling back in her legs.
Stupid gargoyle.
Testosterone, she reflected as she stared up at the underside of her desk drawer. Forget the demons; testosterone would be the real death of them all.
Chapter Seven
A klole iz nit keyn telegram; zi kumt nit on azoy gikh.
A curse is not a telegram; it doesn’t arrive so fast.