“Are you cold?” He brought his hands to her upper arms, wrapping her in warmth.
She shook her head, but her body leaned into him before she could think twice.
In his arms, the warmth of his embrace poured ease into her, made her want more of his touch, more contact with his big body. After the scene in the hallway, when the mara’s fury had shaken the whole building, Katya expected the bloodthirsty ghoul to recoil, to rage over the betrayal of her purposes. Instead, the mara fluttered, calmed, and for the moment, ceased its bloodthirsty whispers.
Nikolai traced the line of her jaw with a feather-light caress, tilting her face up to his. “Is it so hard? Just a little kiss.”
“I’m not good at this.” She closed her eyes, waiting for his mouth to come to hers, but it didn’t. She peeked to find him watching her, patient curiosity written on his brow like a line of text.
She drank in the sight of his face, roughly chiseled from some purely masculine raw material—his nose so straight and a little wide, his jaw so strong. And his eyes. They focused on her so keenly that she could easily believe he possessed a superpower—to see the inner working of Ukrainian politics if he just stared long enough, and of course, to see past the smoke of her reservations to the fire of desire burning bright.
And that mouth, those lips that conveyed so much emotion. The longer she looked at them, the more her own tingled. A quick flick of her gaze back to his eyes, and she understood he was waiting for her to make the move. If he’d known how his whispered command had flooded her with arousal, he might not have been so patient.
She let go of the edge of the towel and reached behind his head to draw his face down to her lips. His were so sensual—deft, soft, and this time, undemanding. He let her take the lead, wordlessly asked she prove she wanted this contact.
God, she did, she wanted this taste of life she’d never had before, and still the mara didn’t object. She slid her tongue between those captivating lips and sought out his tongue, licking it tentatively, inviting a parry. He sucked on her gently, then returned the stroke, and she relaxed, stopped thinking of every action and reaction like a series of events and simply cleared her mind of all but the sensations he inspired, the bliss of mouths melding, her nipples tingling, her sex throbbing and damp inside her eternally reappearing panties. Every sensation was so much better, so much more delightfully frustrating, than anything she’d experienced in life.
His arms came around her, and he dragged her onto his lap, put her swollen flesh against his erection. The rough denim of his jeans abraded her vulva through the cotton of her panties. It hurt so good. She rocked, seeking more of that sensation so intense it was like a distillation of life itself.
He brought his palms up her thighs, and she broke the kiss to watch his hands. His handsome face seemed entirely intent on her pussy, and he’d begun to smile. “I loved it when you showed me how to touch you.”
He slid his thumb under the edge of her underwear and pressed right down onto her clit without even a suggestion of having to search for it. Clearly, he’d committed the lesson to memory. She gasped at the instant, molten clench of her core. The need took over all thought, and she reached for his fly to spring him free, to get all of him inside her as soon as possible.
“Not here.” His hand came to hers and stilled them; then he grinned. “God, you’re glorious when you let go. But I’d at least like to take you into the bedroom, lay you down somewhere soft.” He leaned close enough to speak hot breath into her ear, sending shivery shudders down her spine at the same time he swirled his thumb around her clit. “I’d like to go slow this time. Taste you here.”
Her heart started to pound in her ears with a deafening mix of fear and desire as he teased her. That particular act, with a man’s face pressed to her private parts, had always filled her with shame, made her think of the way her father’s art displayed women so publicly, claiming it was a celebration of nurture and fertility while denying its flagrant sexuality. At home, he and her mother didn’t bother to close doors, had sex all over the house. Twice, she’d walked in on her father bent with his head between her mother’s legs on the dining room table. When they’d seen her walk in, her father had straightened, his face shiny-wet from her mother’s body, and said, “I love your mother’s pussy.”
“Katya, where did you go?” Nikolai withdrew his hand from her panties, and she missed it, her want heightened by a shameful curiosity—could she enjoy a man kissing her there, or would she only think of all the vulva fountains her father had sculpted, water glinting as it slid down over petal-like lips made of smooth marble in many colors.
“Sorry, I—” She scooted to the floor and wrapped herself up in his towel, but the image of the sculptures made her throb between her legs, and the thought of Nikolai’s face there, wet with the arousal only he elicited—her inner muscles clenched so hard it was like a protest at his absence.
God. It had been so much easier not having a body.
He drew his knees up and let his big hands dangle over them. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
“My wants are a little confusing right now.”
He nodded. “Fair enough.”
The floorboards squeaked outside the door, warning them a second before Dariya spoke.
“Kolya? Are you in there? Let’s get some dinner already.”
Katya wrapped herself more thoroughly in the towel, not wanting to taint Dariya’s relationship with her uncle with the same confusing images that scrambled her own desires thanks to her parents lack of privacy.
As if he sensed the turmoil inside Katya, Nikolai brushed her hair off her face and drew her close again. “Yes, I’m in here.”
“Is Katya here too? I saw a shopping bag on the coffee table.”
A bag? She looked up at him, and he nodded.
“Yes, she’s here too.”
“You went shopping?” she whispered.
He nodded. “You needed something besides my oversized clothes.”
“How did you know what size?”
He encircled her waist with his hands, holding up a circle several inches wider than his fingers could span. “I estimated. Hopefully I came close.”
“Is she in there with you?” Dariya called out. “What on earth are you doing in there? Or maybe I don’t want to know.”
“Whether you do or not, it’s none of your business.” He rose, tugging Katya up to standing, then adjusting his erection to lay flat against his torso.
He pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “Wait here. Clothes are on the way.” Then he slid out the door.
Alone, she touched the swollen bud of her clitoris and imagined Nikolai’s deft lips kissing her there. Would she like it, or would her body go cold and rigid?
A knock sounded.
“Just a second.” She turned on the water, rinsed her hands, and splashed water on her face. Then she cracked the door.
He held out a bag, fingers raking through his long hair. Somehow, he looked almost sheepish. “I’ve, uh…never bought a woman clothes before. And I’ve never seen you dressed. Sorry if they aren’t your style.”
It felt right to give him a peck on those amazing lips, but reserve prevailed. “Thank you.”
The bag was from a boutique, not a department store, and each item was wrapped in tissue. Tearing open the delicate thin paper of the topmost parcel, she discovered panties and camisole-type tank tops, the kind you could wear instead of a bra. She laughed, imagining him cupping the air as well as estimating her waist to guess her size. She knew this brand of lingerie. Her mother adored it. But Nikolai had picked her the most modest things from their collection—lace over cotton in light pink and white, full coverage panties—nothing see-through, no strings or thongs.
She squeezed her thighs tightly together. Funny that Nik buying her conservative underwear made her even more excited to be naked with him.
Beneath the parcel of lingerie were tw
o pairs of black leggings and oversized tunic-style sweaters. She’d been more a jeans kind of girl in her bodily life, but those would be as hard to fit as a bra. The soft sweaters were lovely. In the last parcel was a purple dress that matched one of the colorful highlights in her platinum hair—a gorgeous garment, the sort she’d never had anywhere to wear and probably never would.
How much had he spent clothing her? The receipt wasn’t in the bag. Neither were shoes—but he hadn’t spent any time measuring her feet, so those would have been downright impossible to guess. She slid into one of the outfits. Even barefoot, she felt more put together than she had since she’d reappeared. She cracked the door and peered down the hall.
He stood in the living room and glanced up smiling. “You look great.”
“Thanks to you. They’re perfect. And that dress—it’s too much. Where will I ever wear it?”
He shrugged, and perhaps a little blush colored his cheekbones. “It matched your hair.”
“You bought her a dress?” Dariya clapped with toddler-like glee. “Let’s see it.” She gestured back toward Nikolai’s room with the TV remote, then pointed at the flat screen and clicked a button. “Son of a bitch, not this again.”
Katya turned, asking, “What is it?”
Before her mind made sense of the image, the mara erupted in fury, roaring a scream that shredded Katya’s brain. She stumbled backward and bumped into a bookshelf, shaking under the force of the ghostly rage tearing at her. Lisko was on the screen, grinning like he had not a care in the world.
Nikolai appeared at her side, helping her find her footing with the screeches of the mara disorienting her. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
“Are you okay?” he whispered.
Her hands shook and tumultuous energy rippled from her, swaying the fronds of a Christmas cactus and flapping the dishtowel hanging from the handle of the oven door.
“The mara,” she whispered hoarsely, “hates him.”
“So do I.” Nikolai wrapped her in his arms as the tremors shook her.
She tried to breathe the way the strange women who’d visited earlier had suggested. Long, slow breaths, counting in for three beats, then out for four. With the taming of her panicky lungs, the mara’s fury also came under a fragile control, though at the edges of her consciousness, where the creature seemed to dwell, she sensed just how insufficient her hold over it was.
Nikolai stroked her hair, held her firmly, infused her with calm strength. The voices on the TV penetrated her awareness and she wriggled in his arms. “I want to see now.”
He stepped aside, and she gripped the shelf behind her, blinking until she could read the title on the screen. Special Court Judge hints he may dismiss case against Lisko Enterprises.
“No!” Dariya threw her mug at the TV, the screen cracking into a luminescent spider web.
The mara quieted.
“Chert.”
“Sorry,” Dariya said meekly. “I guess that means no more Adyutanti Lyubvi marathons.”
“Adyutanti Lyubvi? That’s all you can say?” Nikolai palmed his forehead.
“Hey, I learned a lot about courtroom procedure from that soap,” Dariya insisted.
Katya still reeled, dizzy from being whipped around by the nightmare inside of her, but somehow her lips pulled into a smile at the pair. He really was in over his head with a teenage girl.
“It won’t hurt you to watch less TV.” Nik inspected the damage, and he spoke over his shoulder to his niece. “You’ll have more time to catch up on your studies.”
The girl scowled at the suggestion, but it was the superficial, obligatory frown of an adolescent who didn’t actually mind having limits set for her. Then she flopped down on the couch and covered her eyes with the crook of her arm, like a heroine on one of her soap operas.
Without Dariya watching, Katya’s legs gave up on holding her upright, and she had to grip the bookshelf for support.
Nikolai was at her side in a flash. Tight lipped and jaw bulging, he tugged her toward a dining room chair and gave her hand a squeeze. “All right?”
“It’s only rumors, right? Maybe the judge won’t really excuse the case.”
“Right.” He returned his laser-like focus to the shattered TV screen.
Mentally, she replayed the images she’d seen in Lisko’s dream, looking on at Lukyanivska Prison, bloodied and broken in the boxing ring. Then she recalled his face on the night he’d killed Fedir—angry, determined, then shocked as he’d realized his bullet would hit her too. The images crashed against the smiling one she’d just glimpsed on the screen. That charming man was her enemy in disguise, and apparently, he’d become a darling of Ukraine while she’d been searching for him in death. He could not be allowed to prosper with so much blood, so many lives on his hands.
Find him, kill him, the mara agreed.
“I’ve got to make some phone calls.” Nikolai stomped off into the bedroom.
He didn’t stand a chance of bringing this man to justice with the tools of his mighty journalistic pen. Truth alone was not enough. Too often, money and influence, not right and wrong, or law and order, determined which version of facts held sway. All the exposés in the world wouldn’t bring Lisko his due. He simply had to die. One way or another, she would lure him here and kill him.
Then her stomach growled like a high-speed train traveled through her intestines.
Right. She would do all that soon. But first, dinner.
* * * *
On the first try, the phone rang through to the voice message system at HQ, Volodomyra Street. Nikolai tried again. A woman answered, the receptionist whose voice he’d come to recognize. “Hello, I’m trying to reach Inspector Yuchenko.”
“Who’s calling?”
“I’m from his car insurance company, calling about a claim he made.”
“Please hold.”
In a moment, the phone clicked, something rubbed against the mouthpiece. “That you, Kolya?”
In the near-stranger’s mouth, the familiar form of his name grated even as he respected how quickly this man thought on his toes. Using Nik’s real name around the station could bring both of them unwanted attention.
“It’s me. You find anything?”
“Maybe.” His voice became quiet, muffled. “There were two separate phone calls received at dispatch reporting bullets fired at the address. Both were closed without explanation.”
“Meaning?”
“Officially, it was checked out and determined to be a false report.”
“Chert, that’s nothing. Anything else?”
“I called in a favor to get the recording of the dispatcher. Five cars were sent to the scene, but no one checked in with the dispatcher from inside the building. Not once.”
“Which means whatever they found, they didn’t want any record of it.” He kicked the footboard of his bed. “Do you know who went to the scene?”
“Yes. I pulled the names from the car assignments.”
“Any known associates of the Belovs?”
Yuchenko whistled. “That’s quite a leap.”
“Is it?” And like a key sliding into a lock, Yuchenko’s familiar-sounding name became a lost detail, finally clicking into place. “Chert. How did I forget? You’re the inspector who tracked them down.”
“One and the same.”
“Hell, kid, you could have told me earlier.”
Yuchenko scoffed. “I didn't know you wanted my résumé.”
Nik didn’t bother to explain why the news made him trust the cop more. It should have been obvious. “You guys get pressure to drop the search?”
“Not from inside the department. No one could risk an association with them. But when I started getting close, I had a couple of near misses with aggressive cars veering onto the sidewalk, and one with a bullet trying to give me a haircut. So cops were talking.”
“I do not recommend that hairstyle. Always looks lopsided. I�
��ll give you the name of a good barber.”
Yuchenko snorted, and another layer of Nik’s reservation about the cop sloughed off.
“So a full blown cover-up. Who has the power to order that?”
“It’s a short list. And I have a feeling you've got a name in mind. Why not toss it out there?”
This was the moment. Nik had to decide to trust the kid, all or nothing. “It’s Dmitri Lisko.”
Yuchenko’s pause stretched longer than a beat. Had Nik made a mistake?
Finally, the detective spoke. “The boxer turned corporate?”
“Yeah. Is he on your list?”
After another moment’s silence, Yuchenko answered. “Sure. A guy with pull like that would be on the list.”
“We have to nail him, Yuchenko.”
The cop kept quiet again.
“Or is that too hot for you?”
“You realize there’s a good chance the victims were low-lifes?”
Nikolai gritted his teeth. Katya had not been a low life. Maybe Fedir had been scum, maybe not. Either way, he hadn’t deserved a summary execution. “My witness won’t rest until justice is served, whether the victims were innocents or thugs. So you want to look for the links between Lisko and the cops who worked the crime scene, or should I?”
Yuchenko sighed. “Me.”
“Thanks, kid. Another thing—can you look into a guy named Fedir Antipin for me?”
“Who’s he?”
“One of the murder victims.”
“Yeah, all right.”
“And be careful.”
“Always am.”
When the line went dead, he texted Leonid. “What are you hearing about the trial?”
His boss’s reply came fast. “Odds on dismissal.”
Chert. “I’ve got a scoop on Lisko,” Nik texted in reply.
“Bad idea. Let this one play out on its own.”
Which essentially meant letting Lisko charm and buy his company out of its responsibilities.
“Please?”
“NO. Keep your ass and your niece’s safe.”
The Siren's Dream Page 12