by Leslie North
"Yeah, you're a family guy," she repeated, as she paused to lift an enormous dusty tome off one shelf. She gently blew some of the dust off it, and heard Dmitry cough behind her. She was surprised the anal-retentive bookseller had even allowed any to accumulate. "But you're also a smart guy," she continued. "Smarter than your brothers. That's why I chose you." Conveniently, I also find you the most attractive brother of the bunch, she mused as she dumped the book down atop an empty chair and kept browsing.
"Come back to the front." She liked the warning in his voice. It meant she was getting to him. "You're going to turn the whole store upside down."
"Maybe," she mused as she flitted further back among the stacks. "But maybe this place could do with a makeover." She caught a snapshot of Dmitry between the shelves and stopped to hold his gaze. "I've funneled you enough information for you to have guessed by now that your father's death was an inside job."
He stood on the other side of the shelf from her, his handsome, exasperated face mirroring hers. A muscle in his jaw flexed at her words. "I guessed that before."
"Inside the family," she corrected him. "And not the so-called family of the Russian mob. I mean your family, Sergey's family."
"How do you know my father?" Dmitry pressed, pursuing her again as she moved off.
Harper tried to keep her voice, her expression, carefully neutral. She wouldn't lie to him, but she didn't have to let him know the depth of her attachment to his father, either. "You like stories," she offered, stepping her fingers along the spines of Dmitry's old books. "Here's a story for you. Once upon a time, there was a family—a mother, and a father, and an only daughter—who found themselves in debt to the Mafia. They were good parents, but not always conscious about where the money they were borrowing really came from." Harper winced. "Anyway. When the Mafia finally came to collect, these—really seriously stellar—parents had nowhere to turn. Nowhere to turn but their daughter's tuition fund."
"I can see where this is going. And for the record, they don't sound like stellar parents," Dmitry muttered behind her. Harper turned to consider him, and saw a fleeting look of sympathy pass across his face. Her eyes narrowed. The next time her fingertips found a book, she hooked them and pulled it deliberately off the shelf. Dmitry gave a strangled noise of frustration and hurried to rescue it off the floor.
"You're one to talk. When your daddy came around less than a year later and invited himself in, you think my household—rather, this storybook household—was happy to see a guy like Sergey Karev? Do you think he was bursting at the expensively-tailored seams with obvious parental ability?"
"I know he wasn't," Dmitry intoned.
Harper shook her head. "No," she agreed. "Not usually, anyway. But I also know you know better than anyone that he's a man capable of leniency. Of… compassion, or at least his version of it. It had gotten back to him how my parents repaid their debt. He said it wasn't right for a young person in this country to go without an education. He offered to pay my way through school."
Dmitry stood silent, still holding the book that required re-shelving. "That was… patriotic of him," he said finally, with a small humorless snort. He set the book aside.
"Of course, he knew what he was purchasing," Harper continued. "I can see that now. Sergey wasn't buying me an education out of the goodness of his black, black heart. He must have had some indication of my affinity for computers, and he predicted how useful I would wind up being to him. So he made an investment." Harper reached out and grasped a small marble bust, pulling it from the shelf. The bust had been acting as a bookend; several volumes gave over to the domino effect and toppled, throwing up a cloud of dust.
"Please stop touching things," Dmitry begged.
"I wound up dropping out eventually," she carried on. "My professors couldn't teach me anything I didn't already know, and they were less willing to bend the rules. You can't put a limit on an education in the Digital Age. Conventional wisdom, and things like morality, just… get in the way. I still try to adhere to them, of course. I still try to use my talents for good." Harper's eyes narrowed. "Maybe it's chaotic good. I don't know."
"Chaotic, definitely," Dmitry said behind her.
"So in conclusion, at the end of the day, let's just say my relationship with your dad was complicated." Harper shrugged. "I did plenty of work for him, but in the wake of his murder, I still feel like it wasn't enough. I want to see his killer brought to justice. I want to see if Sergey anticipated his death…" She put the bust back on the wrong shelf, facing the wrong way. "… and left me a trail of breadcrumbs to follow. So what do you say, Karev?" She turned back to him with a grin. "Want to be the Hansel to my—?"
Another body slammed against hers. Harper's own surprised outtake of breath cut her off as she found herself abruptly turned and shoved back-first against the shelf. A puff of dust unfurled around her, momentarily obscuring her vision… although there was only one other warm body in her vicinity that could have been responsible for the assault.
"Stop. Touching. Things."
Harper blinked. Dmitry had thrust himself against her, his taller, more muscled frame in almost perfect alignment with hers. She could feel the all-too-male heat radiating off his body and realized it had been a while since she had let a man press himself this close to her… not that she was letting this happen. He had attacked her out of the blue, as far as she was concerned, an overreaction to her investigation of his store.
His hands gripped her shoulders, holding her firmly in place. Just to prove that she could still move of her own volition, Harper attempted to push them off her. Dmitry pulled back only long enough to snatch her wrists out of the air and pin her in place against the bookshelf.
"Any other requests?" she asked in a breathy whisper. A long, wordless moment passed between them, and she felt compelled to fill the silence with words in case the Russian decided to fill it with something else. Then again, would she really object to it if he did? Harper licked her suddenly dry lips, and noticed Dmitry's steely eyes drop to follow the sweep of her tongue.
"I have plenty." He applied a bit more pressure to her wrists, until Harper could feel her own pulse hammering wildly beneath his grasp. If he felt it, he didn't relent. If anything, he pushed closer, as if the rhythm of her heart drummed an invitation. "I want you to tell me your name. Your real name."
"Harper. Harper Allen," she replied. "I'd shake your hand, but both of mine seem to be occupied at the moment."
Dmitry pressed closer, until she was certain she could feel his pelvis butting up against hers, but she didn't dare look down to confirm. "Tell me why I should believe you, Harper." His handsome face hovered so close to hers that she couldn't be sure if it was the truth Dmitry wanted, or something closer to a kiss. She admired the fact that he could still think clearly enough to string words together in the proper order—she was certainly having some trouble with it.
"My pocket," she managed finally. She nodded down between them. "My left back pocket. You'll find a phone. Get it out and open it. The password is 311."
"Seems a bit simple for you," Dmitry murmured as his right hand slipped from her wrist and moved downward. Harper arched her back a little to grant him better access, and felt the warm, solid breadth of his palm slide inside her jean pocket and cup her smartphone. That was all he allowed himself to cup, she noted in frustration, as he drew her cell out and punched in the code.
"Did you just call me complicated?" she asked. “I'm flattered."
Dmitry's mouth flexed in a small smile. "I have a feeling complicated doesn't even begin to describe you."
"Pull up my text history," she instructed. "Hell, pull up my email history if you want. You'll find all my conversations with Sergey have been preserved." She wriggled a little beneath him, not as uncomfortable pinned against the shelves so much as she was letting someone else invade her digital privacy. She supposed this was what her victims must feel like when Belvedere was on a ruthless hacking campaign.
"This is everything?" Dmitry shifted his weight to one hip, his grip on her wrist relaxing somewhat. "This… is a lot of information." He swiped his thumb as he scrolled. "I assumed someone with your skills would be more organized than this."
"I'm sentimental," she quipped. "And also, I figured the day would come eventually when we had to meet, and I would have to prove my connection to your family. So I saved it all." She peeled her painted lips back in a radiant smile.
"You knew we would meet?" Dmitry eyed her skeptically, her phone and offered proof forgotten. "Us specifically?"
Was it her imagination, or had he craned himself closer to her again? Harper fluttered her eyes. The handsome bookseller was so controlled, she couldn't allow herself to blink and miss out on a single slip, no matter how small.
He leaned in, his chest pushing against the voluptuous offering of her breasts, and there was really no mistaking his advance.
"I can feel your heart racing," she whispered. She may be cornered, but Belvedere kept herself as cool as a cucumber. It had to be his. Then, to try and lighten the mood, she arched her eyebrow and pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Too much coffee? I've been watching you long enough to know your routine. Two cups is double your usual intake. You might want to sit down and take a breather."
Maybe he wasn't alone in needing one. Harper found her breaths coming shorter as his gaze penetrated her. She was a butterfly pinned to the wall of his collection, at the mercy of his inquest.
"Your eyes… eyelashes. They're real," he said finally as he pulled back.
Harper blinked, and felt very, very self-conscious of her appearance in the aftermath of his statement. Of all the things she had expected Dmitry to do to her in his fired-up state, retreat from their compromising position against his bookshelf was not one of them. Remarking on the validity of her appearance was another.
"Don't sound so pissed about it," she grumbled as she reached up to adjust the collar of her tank top around her weighty breasts. If she was looking to let a breeze in, it was a wasted effort—there was no cooling off after having him that close. "What the hell is the matter with you?" Any other man in his right mind would have taken full advantage of your situation.
That had to be it, she realized. Dmitry Karev, the clean-cut and unassuming bookish brother, was secretly and completely out of his right mind. Maybe that sexy man-bun of his was pulled too tight around his temples and distracting him from other male extremities prone to tightening in her presence. Harper was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for their first meeting. She was probably more woman than the bookish introvert knew how to deal with at a glance.
Dmitry crossed his arms and watched her cautiously. For her part, Harper found herself enjoying the way his new defensive stance emphasized the muscles in his arms beneath the material of his sweater. All of this keeping her distance during her reconnaissance campaign hadn't provided her with the up-close opportunity to really study him. Evidently, the feeling was mutual.
"From a distance, I thought they might be fake," he said finally. "That's all."
She was still uncertain if she was supposed to be taking his remarks as compliments or not. The fact that he hadn't pressed his physical advantage over her sure felt like a slight… then again, a female hacker finding herself compromised probably shouldn't be inviting more confrontation than she had to.
"Do you wish I'd kept my distance?" she asked curiously. "I thought it might make things easier between us if you knew who I was."
"Don't act like you planned this meeting," Dmitry interrupted. "I caught you red-handed and there's nothing more to it. You were acting recklessly."
Harper's eyes narrowed. "Fine, but only if you stop pretending you weren't the one who was interested enough to provoke a meeting in the first place."
"I had no idea who you were when I approached you," Dmitry snapped.
"Of course you didn't," Harper returned just as readily. "But you thought you had a real chance of scoring my number. Isn't that right?"
The Russian exhaled a long, frustrated breath through his nostrils. Not only did he make academic sweaters look good, but there was something about watching his attempts at restraint that could be a huge turn-on for a girl. Just what would it take to unravel Dmitry Karev's composure completely? She thought she had caught a glimpse of it at the coffee shop, and the memory of his rough handling of her was enough to make her heart speed. Dmitry may have been out of the mafia for the better part of a decade, but that obviously wasn't long enough to bank the fire in his blood completely.
She wondered if their thoughts were one and the same, because Dmitry turned from her then to escape behind his desk. Like a lion willingly putting itself back in its cage, Harper mused as she followed after him. "So you've got me. What do you plan on doing with me?" she asked, folding her arms beneath her pillowy chest—deliberately, she may as well admit to herself—and leaning against his desk.
"Nothing," he replied as he eased himself down into his chair. "I'm tired of playing games with you. If it really is your intention to help my family investigate my father's murder, then I assume you're willing to share what you've found so far."
Harper studied him for a long moment. "No more games," she agreed finally. "You aren't wrong. I really do want to help."
"Then why hide it? Why hide your real identity for so long?" Dmitry asked.
"I'm shy." This earned her a snort of amusement, and Harper couldn't help the wry smile that graced her own lips. "Why? Couldn't you tell?" She pressed the joke as she joined Dmitry behind his desk. The bookseller moved aside to allow her access to his computer, but he didn't go far. In fact, he sat so close she could feel the press of his shoulder against her arm.
"I can tell," he replied. "The pink is so understated. It really screams 'I'm uncomfortable with human interaction'… emphasis on screams."
"You like it," Harper accused as she alighted on an available corner of his chair. "It's what made you finally stop and talk to me today, isn't it?" she added as she took charge of navigating his computer's desktop. Dmitry shifted beside her, betraying just how uncomfortable he was with allowing her to take the reins. Whatever she got up to, now that he had given her permission to access his computer, it was likely he still thought he could assume control of the situation if necessary. Speaking both figuratively and literally, she wasn't the only one on the edge of her seat.
She decided to cut him some slack. As much as she was enjoying the intellectually and sexually charged nature of their exchange, trust couldn't be founded on traded quips and rusty flirtation alone.
She held a hand out for the confiscated USB drive. After a brief pause, Dmitry drew it from the pocket of his trousers and passed it to her.
"Please don't make me regret this," he muttered.
Harper contemplated inserting the USB drive suggestively, but decided against it. As soon as it engaged in his system unit, she pulled up the files. "This is everything I've got left," she explained. She shifted aside as Dmitry leaned in, slipping her hand out from beneath his as he took over the mouse. Her heart jumped at the brief, accidental contact. "I've hit a wall. And not just the one you threw me against."
"Believe me, if I had you up against a wall, you'd know it," Dmitry said as he scrolled through her most recently stolen records.
Harper made a show of holding her back and wincing dramatically. Privately, she couldn't help but feel her curiosity aroused once more at the dark promise in his voice.
"So you still think whoever is using the mob to smuggle blood diamonds illegally is using my store as a cover," he surmised as he sat back. "And you think that whoever that person is murdered Sergey. Possibly my father discovered the operation and threatened to expose them. The Russian mob doesn't take kindly to this sort of import, especially if its resources are being expended without any knowledge or bookkeeping." He tried to cross his arms, but his left arm wound up going around Harper's shoulder. They disentangled themselves quickly, awkwardly, and she stood to all
ow him some room to himself to think.
"Correct. That's what Belvedere thought, and that's what I think, too." She sighed, blowing a stray strand of cotton candy-pink hair out of her eyes. "I don't know how, and I don't know why, considering you hardly ever leave here. That's not a compliment, by the way—but your antisocial nature definitely makes you something of a built-in gargoyle for the store. I'd have a better idea of how they're passing messages if I could look around more." She moved off as if to take back up her exploration of his shelves, and heard the desk chair rear behind her violently. She pulled a face. "Seriously, I promise not to get your precious systems out of order, but if we want to uncover anything we're going to have to… hey, what the hell? Where do you think you're going with my stuff?"
"It stays here with me," Dmitry said as he carried the bag of electronics into the backroom. Harper loped after him, furious that she had left her cherished trove unguarded.
"No way," she said flatly as Dmitry swept the backroom desk clear of books and set her stuff down. "Absolutely out of the question! I run my operations out of my apartment."
"Or various coffee shops," he said in wry amusement.
"If you think I'm going to settle for working under your supervision, then you have another thing coming!" she exclaimed, fisting her hands on her hips. Despite her battle-ready words, she felt completely helpless to stop him as he began to set her things out for her. "And anyway, I thought you trusted me now!"
He threw his head back and gave a rich laugh at this. Harper didn't know whether to feel offended that she was the butt of some private joke, or pleased that she could amuse the somber-faced Russian. She decided to settle for a little bit of both.
"Get the rest of your stuff from home," he instructed, taking her by the arm to steer her back out to the front of the store. "I trust you enough to let you out of my sight for that long."
"Because you have collateral," she muttered mutinously, trying not to thrill too much at his authoritative touch. "You know I have no choice but to come back."