He swallowed his lust. “Let’s get you something to wear.”
Chapter 5
In spite of wearing a tank top and panties, Katya felt entirely naked in front of this man, a practical stranger. He’d seen her that way already, had been inside her—a place she’d let only a few, very familiar men go. And then he’d apologized for being a jerk, which had momentarily softened her defenses. But they were old, entrenched fortifications, and she reassembled them quickly.
He returned his sweatshirt to her.
“Can I also have some pants?” She pulled the baggy garment over her body, already warmer than she’d been the first time he’d brought her back. Maybe the blood—there’d been more of it this time.
“Pants? Sure.” He rummaged in a bottom drawer, giving her that delicious view of his broad back and meaty, muscular butt.
Heat flared on her cheeks. Yep, she was definitely warmer.
With him momentarily turned away, the sense of privacy from the lack of his intense gaze melted away some of her tension. Intense, yes, but for a man who’d seemed so gruffly in control when she’d appeared in his bathroom, he’d been equally, adorably disoriented when she’d vanished.
Katya dropped onto his bed to pull on a fresh pair of socks. The others she’d worn must still be in the kitchen, where Dariya had pointed them out when Katya had been invisible. Katya smiled down at her feet, awash with affection for the peculiar young woman.
Since they’d moved in, Katya had enjoyed eavesdropping on the pair’s affectionate and yet awkward teasing, as if they weren’t quite sure how to be together. And the strong, capable Nikolai seemed somewhat cowed by Dariya, unwilling to exercise his authority as her guardian.
Every day, Katya observed the girl didn’t go to school, and she brought her ghostly thumb to her mouth to nibble on the nail, though the fidget could bring her no comfort. Why did Nikolai allow his niece to stay home? Katya’s parents had found it more convenient to keep her with them or to take her traveling for their work, which had made for a lonely childhood with only books for company. She’d have done anything to be allowed to march into a classroom every morning.
“Shouldn’t Dariya be going to school?” she blurted.
He spun, a pair of basketball shorts in one hand and sweatpants in the other. In the interest of warmth, she pointed to the pants, even though they would dwarf her.
“You know Dariya?” He glanced down the hall as if Katya might still be a trick, an elaborate spoof orchestrated by his niece.
Katya colored, wishing she could deny her voyeuristic presence in their lives. “Well, I’ve never visited her dreams, if that’s what you mean. But I’ve seen her around, even hung out a bit. We like the same TV shows.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You’ve been watching TV with her?”
“Only sometimes.” Katya shrugged, hoping to imply it wasn’t a big deal to be a third, secret, and spectral roommate.
She reached out to accept the pants, then looked from them to him pointedly and twice before he got the hint and turned around. Maybe it was silly after what they’d done, but in the skin again, her usual inhibitions had returned full force. Maybe even in fuller force, with this man who made her so aware of her body and its new, unfamiliar desires.
As he spun, he crossed his arms over his chest, spreading even wider the muscles of his back. The final time they’d had sex in the dream, he’d rolled her over, parted her legs wide, and driven into her with abandon. None of her lovers had ever taken her like that, so deeply, so thoroughly. She’d simply clung to his massive deltoids, driven her fingertips into them, and let him push her all the way to an orgasm that had actually wiped her mind blank for long, blissful seconds.
“Why TV?” His question startled her out of the memory and sent her heart pounding like she’d been caught in some illicit act.
Belatedly, his question registered. “No one to talk to for more than a year. It gets boring, and lonely.” She threaded her feet into the vast pants. At least they had a drawstring.
He straightened the sparse items on his dresser, a wallet and keys, a charging cellphone, and then spun all at once, not bothering to ask if she’d finished dressing. “So you can see us, even when we can’t see you. You’re here, watching us?”
Lightning fast, his gaze flicked toward the bed, and she knew he was remembering touching himself.
“I’m around. But I have no interest in spying on people in their private moments.” Which was more or less true, except that one very private moment when he’d been so achingly beautiful and so sad, and she’d felt free enough and desperate enough to offer him solace. “I’m constantly trying to get through to someone, to find help getting to Lisko.”
“Right.” Nikolai’s low rumble sent a tingle over her shoulders and down her spine.
“I need you to tell me everything you can about your boyfriend, and everything you remember from that night. What did Lisko look like? What was he wearing? Exactly what did he say to Fedir?”
“I al—”
“Nikolai, who are you talking to?” Dariya called from the hallway. “You liar. There is totally a woman here with you. And you’re going to be late for work.”
“Chert,” he muttered, covering his eyes with his palm. “Just a minute, Dariya,” he called out through the door. Then he peeked through his fingers at Katya. “I’ve got to figure out how to sneak you past her so we can do a little investigating.”
“Out?” Katya’s palms turned sweaty. She pictured the stretch of sidewalk at the apartment building’s entrance, which she’d often stared at longingly through the glass front door since she’d become a ghost. Plenty of times, she could have slipped through when it opened. But fear of a blustery Kiev breeze kept her inside.
What if the wind blew her ghostly particles asunder and they never reformed? A bullet hadn’t erased her consciousness, but could the outdoors? She wasn’t willing to risk it—she had a mission to achieve. “I can’t go out. What if I turn into a ghost again in front of somebody?”
“But don’t you want to help?”
“I’ll help from here. I can hang out with Dariya, keep her company—”
“She’s fifteen.” He sat on the bed and pulled on a pair of boots. “She doesn’t need a babysitter.”
“No. She needs a friend. And we can read her superhero comics, or we’ll do all the leg work for your Femme Fatale story.”
“You know about her comic books and that stupid story?”
Geez, she really did sound like a voyeur.
“It’s not a stupid story,” she said. “Dariya is right. Those women are going to win a Nobel Peace Prize, and you are going to feel like an idiot for calling it a puff piece.”
“You’re kidding.” He took off his glasses and bit the tip. They were trendy and elegant in contrast to his ruggedly handsome face, but when he put them in his mouth like that, he looked so picture perfect she could almost believe he was posing. “They’re just a couple punk rockers hoping to sell records.”
“Sorry to break the news to you, but they’re serious activists. And I happen to know a little bit about the awarding of Peace Prizes. My father is so obsessed with winning one he’s nominated himself twice.”
“Himself?” His mouth split into a grin. “Of course. I can’t believe I didn’t put it together sooner. You’re Mikaiel Dvoynev’s daughter.”
Ugh. She’d been enjoying her anonymity, and now she’d gone and blown it, and to a journalist, no less. “The one and only.”
“I should have seen the resemblance.” Nikolai shook his head, scouring her with his gaze, making her want to disappear again back into her ghost form.
She’d certainly heard that before, usually accompanied by leers. Her former-actress mom had been the model for her father’s nudes. All the men who’d seen Katya naked had commented her breasts were identical to her mother’s.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t look anything
like my father.”
Nikolai cocked his head, his eyebrows drawing together, searching her face intently and heightening her urge to disappear.
Escaping was second best to vanishing. She marched to the door. “Introduce me to Dariya. We’ll keep each other company and help you with your research while you look into Fedir’s murder. Deal?”
She didn’t wait for his assent, just yanked the handle, dashed down the hallway, and found the girl sitting cross-legged on the couch reading a Justice League comic book—one an invisible Katya had perused over her shoulder many times. A plate of toast sat on Dariya’s lap. She’d styled her spiky pink hair elaborately, though her bathrobe made it clear she had no intention of going to school.
“Hi, I’m Katya.”
Dariya gave her a once over. “Wow. You’re pretty.” She looked past Katya to where Nikolai had come up behind her. “He’s, like, way too old for you.”
Surprised, Katya turned to face him. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-one. You?”
“Twenty-six.” At least she had been when she’d died. “Or, twenty-seven, I guess.”
“Wow.” Dariya whistled. “Clearly you two discussed all the important things. I hope you at least used a condom.” She took a bite of toast and then talked around it as she chewed. “She is out of your league, Kolya. I hope you can deliver in the bedroom, old man, or she’ll trade you in.”
Katya burst out laughing both at the words and the way Nikolai turned as purple as a beet.
“Hush, girl. Didn’t your mother ever wash your mouth out with soap?”
The girl frowned, tucked her chin, and her lower lip began to tremble. Belatedly, her uncle’s eyes widened as he realized what he’d said. The blue turning storm gray of his irises betrayed his own reserved grief. His splayed hands hung at his side, and his big form remained still, paralyzed.
So Katya went to the girl instead. She might as well make herself useful.
“Shhh.” She sat and gave Dariya a sideways hug. “I know it’s hard. Nikolai told me all about it.”
The girl remained stiff but leaned into Katya. “He did?”
“Yes. I lost the person who loved me most in the world too, about a year ago. It’s hard to heal, to believe we’ll ever be loved like that again.”
Dariya sniffed, whimpered, and threw her arms around Katya. Katya let her own tears for Fedir fall. Death had deprived her of the chance to weep over him.
Nikolai pinched the bridge of his nose, a study in fierce emotion contained by masculine will. Clearly, he didn’t want to join the cry fest.
“Go to work,” Katya said.
“Just tell me the name of the company where Mr. Antipin worked, and I’ll look into the case.”
Mr. Antipin? Why was he being so formal?
“He worked for Novyye Resheniya.”
Dariya pulled back. “Don’t tell me you’re a source. Kolya, it’s unethical to sleep with your source. You have to be objective to evaluate her reliability.”
Katya shook her head and stroked Dariya’s pink spikes, crunchy with styling product. “Nope. He’s not working on a story about Fe—Mr. Antipin, just a personal matter for me.”
“Oh. Good.” She rested her head on Katya’s shoulder again. “Then tell me, who did you lose a year ago?”
Her gaze flew to him and his thin, sensual lips spread into a smile. He’d seen Dariya’s question coming, and had used Fedir’s last name to make sure she could confide in his niece.
Katya couldn’t help but smile back. “Fedir. His name was Fedir.”
* * * *
All the seats in the metro car were taken. Nik grabbed a pole and caught sight of his reflection in the window on the door. He’d put on his suit in a hurry, and he’d managed to miss a button in his vest. The knot of his tie was lopsided too.
“Nice glasses,” a woman said.
With her sleek, dark hair and navy-blue pea coat, she reminded him of his epically selfish ex-girlfriend, Alisa, the one who’d tried to make him choose between her and his career. The resemblance left zero interest in talking to the woman beyond a polite response. “Thanks.”
He did receive a lot of compliments on the eyeglasses. Dariya had helped him shop for them online and told him they suited his Clark Kent persona. Her obsession with Femme Fatale ranked a distant second to her love of those American comic book heroes, Superman and Batman.
She often left him little printouts around the apartment. After they’d ordered the frames, he’d found a page taped to the bathroom mirror. The clean-cut Clark Kent, journalist and alter ego of Superman, wore glasses identical to the ones they’d bought. In his speech bubble, Cyrillic letters spelled out the phrase, Hello, I’m Nikolai Zurkov, senior editor at the culture desk.
A man opened a newspaper, which featured a photo of two city officials taken in a park, one of Mikaiel Dvoynev’s giant nude sculptures at their back. And Katya was the artist’s daughter. Christ. Having a dad like that would surely screw with a kid’s head. Years ago, before Nikolai had landed a job at his beloved politics desk, he’d reported on a new exhibit at the modern art museum and literally walked through the man’s installation of a vulva and vagina large enough an adult could stand inside—supposedly modeled on the sculptor’s wife’s body, as all his work was.
Now that Nik knew of the connection, platinum-blond Katya’s physical resemblance to the renowned beauty Svetlana Dvoynev was stunning. Everyone in Ukraine had seen the woman’s iconic breasts. Hell, Nik had more or less strode through the birth canal from which Katya had sprung. The sculpture’s prominent clitoris had been rubbed dirty by all the hands caressing it.
And, chert, what kind of narcissist nominated himself for the Nobel Peace Prize? Twice. It had to say something that she grieved the adoring Fedir but hadn’t once mentioned missing her still-living parents.
He got off the train at the next stop and headed for the headquarters of Novyye Resheniya. The pharmaceutical company wasn’t enormous, but politicians celebrated its success as vital to Ukraine’s economic development. Nikolai had spoken to their media relations director, Tatiana Oburski, on more than one occasion, so that’s who he asked for at the glossy chrome reception desk in the lobby.
Sometimes his media badge was as powerful as carrying around an automatic weapon—pen mightier than the sword, and all.
A guard showed him upstairs where a glass window revealed a small meeting underway in the media director’s office. One glance at Nik, and Tatiana dismissed her underlings with a wave. She gave a crisp nod, inviting him in. The PR-lets rounded him with a wide berth, and one even whispered, “That’s Nikolai Zurkov.”
Once upon a time, he’d been somebody—the senior reporter on the politics desk. Now he was the fucking culture editor. Music, books, food. He may as well publish a damn cookbook—Nikolai Zurkov’s Guide to Reheating Takeout in the Microwave Oven.
“Hello, Kolya.” The director gestured to a chair opposite her desk. Her shoulders lifted, and he imagined she was trying not to cross her arms over her chest.
“Tatiana.” He didn’t want to give her any ideas, so he didn’t reply with the familiar form of her name.
“Personally, I never mind getting a glimpse of you, but when you show up in my office unannounced, it sets my teeth on edge. Is this a courtesy visit before you fuck me with some cooked-up whistle-blower piece?”
He couldn’t help but smile. She was maybe five years older than him and so stunningly beautiful she might have stepped off a fashion ad for women’s designer work wear, but she possessed a mouth as filthy as a Black Sea pirate. Before Sofiya got sick, he’d run in to Tatiana in a bar drinking vodka all alone after what she’d called an elephant dick of a day, by which he’d taken her to mean a long one. She’d cozied right up to him, and they’d had such a fun evening kvetching about the state of journalism and throwing back shots that he’d very nearly taken her back to his place.
But when the freezing Ki
ev air had hit him on the way out of the bar, it had sobered him enough to remember his hard-learned lessons about journalistic integrity. Never compromise your objectivity. It will always bite you in the ass, and sometimes it will cause someone to die.
Still, months after that night, he wasn’t above flirting. He opened his mouth to say he wasn’t there to fuck her with a story or otherwise, and then he thought of pretty little Katya at home on the couch in his clothes, and all the many sexual positions they’d enjoyed in his dream last night. He snapped his mouth closed on the flirtatious retort and sat in the plush armchair.
“There’s no whistle-blower case, unless you have an exclusive you want to give me?” He turned up his palms, signaling his readiness to receive a gift.
“Fat chance.”
“Actually, I’m asking for a favor. Just a little background on a former employee who was murdered last year.”
“Murdered?” With narrowed eyes, she glanced out at the office beyond the glass wall behind him. “If one of our employees was murdered, I sure as hell better have known about it. Our trade secrets are very valuable.”
“I doubt this lowly sales rep knew any trade secrets. Maybe it was reported to Novyye Resheniya as an accident. Given what I heard about the murder, I would have expected an investigation, but I suppose your human resources department could have kept it under wraps.”
“They wouldn’t have kept it a secret from me unless they wanted their balls served up with a side of gravy.”
Nikolai barely resisted the urge to cross his legs. A pang of pity for her underlings passed through him. “Well, he died, and an eyewitness told me he worked here.”
“What was his name?” She opened her laptop and began typing.
“Fedir Antipin.”
She clicked away and then shook her head. “Antipin. With an I?”
“That’s usually how it’s spelled.”
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