Rocked by Love (Gargoyles Series) (19 page)

With an
eep,
Kylie reached for a blanket to cover herself and discovered none to be had. She hadn’t yet made the bed she and Dag had just, um, occupied. Groaning, she did the only thing she could, flinging herself off the far side of the mattress and hiding in the space between it and the far wall where no more strangers could see her bare tits and ass.

Oy
to the ever-loving
vey!

Knox tapped on the glass again, this time with much less force, and gestured at Dag to open the window. The latter complied with enough irritated force to have the old sash screeching in protest.

“Wynn is waiting below by the front door,” Knox said the minute the barrier had been lifted. “No one answered our knocks, and she became concerned, so I agreed to look around for our hosts. It appears I have found you.”

Kylie groaned and heard her grandmother’s voice clearly inside her head.
“Dayn mazl, Got, vos du voynst azoy volt men dir di fentster oysgezetst.” You’re lucky, God, that you live so high, otherwise people would break your windows.
In that moment, Kylie’s hand itched for a rock.

“We did not hear the knock,” Dag bit out, and Kylie peeked over the mattress to see he had regained his natural form in response to the rude awakening. Too bad the other man was a Guardian, too, because she would have liked to see those claws of Dag’s do some damage to the jerk’s smug smile.

“I can see that is true.”

Kylie groaned even louder and banged her head against the side of the bed. “Argh! Make him go away. We’ll be downstairs to let them in in a minute. With clothes on.”

Dag didn’t bother to repeat her instructions, just slammed the window closed and turned to face her, spreading his wings to block the view from outside. “I take responsibility for this. I failed to properly protect you.”

The statement made Kylie’s brain shoot immediately to condoms, which they had so not used, and panic took over for a second. Then she invested a minute in relearning how to breathe, and reminded herself with a great sense of relief that she was on the pill. It didn’t make everything better, but it helped a little. “Yeah, well, it’s a little late to worry about it now, but hopefully it’s not a big deal. I mean, I’m clean, and unless you’ve had way more free time while you were awake than I’ve been imagining, I’m guessing the chances of you carrying anything are pretty small. I mean, if those microbes can even live through the three-hundred-years locked-in-stone in the first place.”

Dag’s wings rustled, and his expression shifted from grim stoicism to clear confusion. “I do not understand what you speak of. Of course you bathe regularly, and what does my slumber have to do with any of this? I allowed an outsider to stumble upon us without knowing he approached, and I allowed him to see your nakedness. I should have guarded you better. The failure shames me.”

Oh. So not the condom thing, then?
Kylie felt her cheeks light up like a menorah on the last day of Hanukkah. “Um, yeah. Right. We were interrupted. That sucked.” Feeling around on the floor beside her, her fingers brushed against a pile of cloth. It was her T-shirt. Kylie nearly wept with relief as she pulled it on. At least her tits were covered now. One—er, two—down, one to go. “But it’s not like it was another
drude,
or another psychotic electrician, so that’s a plus. No harm, no foul, right?”

Peering around the dim space—since Dag’s wings continued to block the window’s vantage point but also the light coming through it—she finally spotted her jeans and could have kissed them, she’d been missing them so much. She wriggled into those before she rolled to her feet and turned to face the Guardian. “It’s not like I enjoyed being woken up and meeting Wynn’s fiancé while nude and out of it, but I’ll live through it. I think saying it ‘shames’ you might be taking things a bit too far.”

She spoke the truth, but none of her words did anything to cool her blush or calm the twist of unease in her belly. Probably because none of them could change the fact that she’d just lost her mind and had sex with the worst excuse for a one-night stand in history—a nonhuman, immortal, shapeshifting, demon-fighting gargoyle whom she had met just a week ago. Dag might not be a bad Guardian, but she was definitely a bad Kylie.

Very, very bad.

She would have to come up with a suitable punishment on the way to letting her guests into the house. You know, as she should have done in the first place. Was it possible to draw and quarter oneself, or did that require a team effort?

She got halfway out the door before Dag caught up to her, placing a now-human hand on her shoulder. “Kylie…” he began.

“Not now.” She cut him off and quickly scooted out from under his touch. “We can talk about … whatever … later. Right now, Wynn and Knox are waiting. Let’s go.”

Not bothering to wait for his reaction, she headed briskly for the stairs and jogged down before he could stop her. When she deactivated the alarm and swung open the heavy front door, she could feel him behind her, but she’d just have to find a way to ignore his presence.

Kind of like she’d now have to ignore the annoying smirk on her friend’s pretty face.

“Well, hello there, Ms. Kylie.” Wynn grinned, her singsong tone guaranteed to give her friend a migraine in under six seconds. “I think you were expecting us, or did the fact that we were, ahem, coming … slip your mind?”

Though never previously given to fits of violence, Kylie knew one more laughing remark from her friend would lead to a swift fist in the witch’s face. “I hate you right now,” she hissed, turning on her heel to stalk back to the kitchen, leaving her guests to make the best of her less than warm welcome.

Ikh hob es in drerd!
To hell with it. She’d already used up all her warmth. In her cheeks.

She heard the rise and fall of voices and the rumble of luggage wheels on the hardwood following her down the hall. Ignoring them, she yanked open the fridge, grabbed herself a soda, and nearly sent the cap flying across the room from the force with which she wielded the bottle opener.

Wynn actually had to duck as she entered the room. “Um, we didn’t mean to interrupt. You know that, right?” Her grin had faded, and now she looked concerned and a little bit guilty. “Knox told me what he saw, but it wasn’t like we deliberately barged in.”

Kylie lowered her drink with a sigh and let her shoulders slump. “I know. And I don’t really hate you.” She pulled one of the high stools away from the center island and climbed onto the padded seat. “At the moment, I think I just hate myself.”

Her friend sat beside her. “Why would you hate yourself? Did you drug him? Was it sexual assault?”

Snorting into her cola, Kylie shook her head. “No, that’s not how I would say it happened.”

“Well, he’s a Guardian, so I know he didn’t assault you. These guys have a code of honor that makes jarheads and saints look like moral degenerates. So why the crazy over two consenting adults doing what consenting adults like to do?”

Kylie looked at her friend like the crazy had come from an entirely new direction. “Wynneleh, he’s a member of another species!”

Wynn rolled her eyes. “Nominally. So yeah, Guardians aren’t exactly human, but it’s not like you screwed a donkey, Ky. Get over yourself. Are you trying to tell me there’s a woman on this planet who could look at one of our guys and not think they’re damned sexy?”

“Oh, why am I bothering with you? You’ve already gone over to the Dark Side.”

“Damn straight. And the cookies are awesome.”

“Do you mind? I’m having a personal crisis over here. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Yeah, I mind, because I think a crisis is a huge overreaction. I’m also betting that you
weren’t
thinking at the time, which is just the way it should be. I sure as heck can’t string two coherent thoughts together when Knox touches me. That’s just the way it is between mates. Frankly, I count it as a pretty big perk.”

Kylie held up a hand and cocked her ear. “Wait a second there, Pooh Bear. Mates? Where the hell did that word come from, and what is it doing in my conversation?”

“Our conversation. Don’t be a greedy bitch. And what, you thought you and Dag were just good buddies?”

“Um, I thought we were about half an insult away from sworn nemeses. And I kept thinking that, right up until my pants fell off.”

Wynn snorted. “All by themselves, right? Come on, Koyote. You heard about me and Knox, Fil and Spar, and Ella and Kees, and you thought every one of the new female Wardens turning out to be the mate of the Guardian she woke was just a big ol’ coincidence? I thought all you geek types had to know about things like statistics and the laws of probability.”

Stunned—literally; she felt as though she’d just taken a softball to the side of her head—Kylie thought back to her initial conversations with Wynn about the Guardian situation. She remembered their talk. She remembered the mention of those couples. She even remembered being informed of her new Wardenship, but she did
not
remember the M-word ever entering the picture.

And, oh yes, she would have remembered.

She pointed an accusing finger at her friend. “You never said anything about mates. You said the two of us would have to work together because he’s a Guardian and I’m a Warden and those twains just meet like that. There was no mention of mating. Mating was never in the handbook.”

Wynn pursed her lips and looked up at the ceiling. “You know, there really should be a handbook, shouldn’t there?”

Suddenly two hulking figures stood behind them, one of them crowding close to Kylie and growling low in his throat. “What have you done to upset her?” Dag demanded, glaring at Wynn.

The witch glared right back. “Actually, I’m not the one who upset her, big guy. I think that honor goes to a little story you never bothered to tell her. I swear, what the hell is it with you guys and withholding vital information? You’d think having Ella and Fil both contemplating ripping your balls off would have taught you all a lesson on sharing means caring.”

Knox gave his fiancée a hard look. “You believe I withheld vital information from you, little witch?”

Kylie had always dismissed Dag’s claims that he ranked as one of the smallest of his kind, but after seeing Knox in person, she felt forced to reevaluate. The gargantuan man—even in human form, which she had to admit was a lot nicer to look at than the gargoyle side she’d seen in her guest-room window—looked to be in imminent danger of overflowing her kitchen. Her enormous, remodeled, showroom-ready kitchen her Realtor had described as the focal point of the house. In comparison, Dag’s size seemed almost, you know, normal.

Wynn appeared neither intimidated nor particularly impressed. “No, you did not, but you didn’t get a chance, did you? I knew it all right from the start, so hiding the facts never would have gotten you anywhere with me.”

“I hide nothing,” Dag cut in, his tone angry and expression stony. “But whatever I choose to do is no business of yours, witch. I can handle my life however I see fit.”

“Um, excuse me?” Kylie found herself raising her hand in her own kitchen and tried not to think too hard about the implications of that. “Anyone care to fill me in on what the hell is going on?”

Wynn opened her mouth, Knox shook his head, Dag bared a fang, and the witch backed off, mumbling, “Apparently not,” half under her breath.

“Dag is correct,” Knox said, laying a hand on his fiancée’s shoulder. “He has the right to conduct himself however he feels is most appropriate. And we all have more important matters to deal with. Perhaps we should simply agree to ‘table’ this discussion, I believe one would say, and focus on the reason why we have all come together here.”

Kylie took note of the similarities in Dag’s and Wynn’s disgruntled expressions. Then she spied Knox’s determination and realized no one was likely to explain what the heck had just happened anytime soon, so she bit back a growl and jumped off her stool.

“Fine,” she said, setting her soda aside with a click. “In that case, I’ll show you guys your room, and then I’m hopping in the shower. We can all use the time to decide what we want for dinner, and we’ll start work when it gets here. Follow me.”

She stalked toward the stairs, not really caring if they obeyed or not. The house wasn’t that big. Eventually, they’d find the only spare room with a bed in it and put two and two together. With the mood she was in, Kylie would even let them find the bedding she’d piled on the nightstand and make their own damned bed.

She just hoped they didn’t stumble across her torn panties in the process.

Crap,
she swore as she picked up the pace and raced ahead to retrieve her discarded undergarments.
Next time, they get a hotel.

Or, you know, I keep my legs together. Whatever works.

*   *   *

Kylie quickly discovered that her state-of-the-art shower-head lacked a setting for self-flagellation, so she turned it to massage and tried to content herself with a mild pummeling. Even the addition of the body jets and the cross-spray couldn’t give her the beating she so richly deserved, but at least the water was hot. Didn’t Christians think sin could be burned away? Wasn’t that the whole rationale behind burning witches?

At the moment, Kylie entertained a fond thought involving one particular witch and a book of matches, but that was probably because she just wasn’t a very nice person. Oh, she used to be, but that was before she got mugged by demon worshippers and entered the Fabulous Land of Make meBelievei’mcrazy. Now, she was finding out she had homicidal tendencies and the morals of a big ol’ slut. Lo, how the mighty were fallen.

Good thing she was so short. It cut down on the trip.

A puff of cool air had her opening her eyes and frowning at the shower settings, but before she could even focus on the temperature gauge, a thickly muscled arm curled around her from behind. It pressed against her just below her breasts, a more effective restraint than a roller-coaster harness. She shrieked loud enough for her
bubbeh
to hear her.