He marched her away from the park for a few blocks, toward the little shops they’d visited earlier. The doors of brightly lit restaurants were propped open, and exotic scents wafted onto the sidewalk.
Her stomach growled loudly.
“Are you hungry?”
It seemed like she’d just eaten, but she was starving all over again. Still, she was running out of time, and the last thing on earth she wanted was to stop somewhere for dinner before she got what would probably be her last and only night to be alive, and to be with him. She put on an innocent face. “No.”
He chuckled. “Liar. We’ll order room service.”
They zigzagged a few blocks before he stopped in front of a nondescript building and flung open the door. The entryway led into a gorgeous lobby. She gasped at the luxury. It was a modern palace, and she was very out of place.
“No. Dmitri. This is too much. Let’s find somewhere simpler.”
“Nope. Pretty ghosts whose time is running out don’t stay in hotels with only four stars. We’ll stay here.”
At the reception desk, he arranged for a room and handed over that little plastic card. Only this one was a different color than the other.
“Thank you, Mr. Luchenko,” the receptionist said.
Sonya tilted her head.
They followed behind a bellhop with nothing to carry since Dmitri only had his pack.
“Who’s Luchenko?”
“Ssh.” He pressed his finger to her lips. “That one’s a backup. Don’t want Gregor finding us.”
“How do those little cards work anyway?” she whispered.
Still, the bellhop gave her an odd look. “Up this elevator and to your right, sir. Enjoy your stay.”
Dmitri handed him a tip, but all she had to offer him was a smile. “Thank you.”
Inside the upholstered walls of the elevator, Dmitri answered her question. “The cards are tied to bank accounts. When I use the other one, Gregor can see all the transactions online.”
“Online?”
“Sweetheart, can I explain it later?”
A wave of sadness overtook her. So many mysteries in this new world, and there wouldn’t be a later to figure them out. She really wanted to know. “But I—”
He silenced her with a kiss, and twenty-first century banking technology seemed suddenly less fascinating. When he touched her, she became real, she became solidly Sonya again, but who knew how long that would last?
The elevator halted, its doors opening with a ding. Fresh flowers adorned a table in the elevator lobby. They strolled arm in arm down a quiet hallway lit with brass sconces.
Another one of the magic cards appeared from his pocket to open the door. People probably used them to brush their teeth and comb their hair too.
Inside, a high bed dominated the small room, its striped satin cover as luxurious as the one in the department store. The walls were papered with a matching stripe, ivory and silver and celery green. Gilded frames hung on the wall, housing oil paintings of garden scenes that looked familiar but not recognizable. She’d never stayed in a hotel, but this was a far cry from how she’d imagined the inside of a Kiev pension. A wall of windows displayed San Francisco’s lights twinkling in the nearly dark sky and stealing her breath.
She dragged him over and touched her fingers to the window. Time seemed to stop as she stood there, entranced by the fog pouring down the hill and through the streets as if they were canals. Lights were everywhere, illuminating the shape of the skyscrapers and the movement of traffic, a white garland on the bridge, and blinking red in the sky.
“What are those?” She pointed.
“Airplanes.” His gravelly whisper raised goose bumps on her arms. It astonished her that a dozen of the planes passed by in just a few minutes.
“Let’s sit down and order some dinner.” He kicked off his shoes and she followed suit.
Together, they climbed onto the bed, holding hands.
When he dropped his weight against the pillow, the firm mattress bounced. A surprising memory surfaced, of sitting in a rowboat across from her father when a motorboat went by and set them to rocking. Papa’s hat had flown off and they’d paddled fast to catch it, laughing all the way.
Those moments made up a life, but a person never took note of them at the time.
From the telephone on the nightstand, which was the first telephone to look anything like the devices Sonya knew, he ordered what sounded like an enormous meal and a bottle of champagne. Then he flipped off the lights so they could enjoy the view.
“Champagne?” she asked.
He cleared his throat. “I need a little courage to do this thing you’ve asked of me.”
She punched him in the arm, and he chuckled. She rolled onto her side, studying his flawed profile in the golden light. “Tell me the truth. What things do scare you?”
He stared at the ceiling for a long time. Was he ignoring the question? She sat up to see his face straight on. His soft lips had parted and the vulnerability on his hard features astonished her. She pressed a hand to his chest.
“I’m not a good man, Sonya.”
She shook her head. “We’ve already ta—”
“Listen to me. I need you to know.” He captured her wrist roughly.
“It won’t change my mind.”
“I killed a woman. Just like you. With a shot through the chest.”
Her blood turned to ice. No. He was lying. Trying to push her away. “I don’t believe you.”
But then she remembered his reverent caress over the scar.
His voice flattened. “It happened last month.”
“Why?” Sonya whispered, her body already trembling.
“She got in the way.”
Sweet Jesus. Where had her gentle Dmitri gone? “Of what?”
“The bullet.”
“An accident, you mean?” Well, that counted for something. “Who was the bullet meant for?”
“Her boyfriend. A drug dealer who’d double-crossed my uncle, stolen a boatload of money, and quadrupled it by selling heroin on the streets of Kiev.”
“Why not call the militsya?”
“The cops can’t be trusted. Good or bad, they all want a piece of you. We can only do business if we are our own enforcers.”
“So you decide justice on your own?”
“Not justice, no. But I enforce the rules. Our business has its own law. Anyone who plays the game knows what it—”
“Except that girl.”
“Katya. That was her name.” He blew out a breath, and his hand went to the bridge of his nose. “And, yeah, except her.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m not a hero. I’m not even very nice.”
But he’d been beyond nice to her.
“Have you killed anyone since then?”
He closed his eyes. “The last couple of days are the first I’ve been sober since I killed her.” His eyebrows pulled together. “Guess I was trying to drink myself dead, just like dear old dad.”
It all made sense—why he was the one to bring her back. Elena had said it. She was his crossroads, his shot at redemption.
With his palm sweaty against hers, they sat in silence, only broken by the occasional voices from the hallway, and in the distant corner of her brain, the haunting chant of her parents. If she listened to them, she would go green-eyed crazy, so she tuned her ear to his breaths. They grew so regular, she worried he might be asleep. She couldn’t lose this chance.
She shifted the grip of her hand around his fingers to rouse him. “Tell me something else, Dmitri.”
“Like what?” He blinked his eyes open.
“About making love.”
He turned onto his side, and smoothed her hair away from her face. “You’re sure about this?”
“Yes.” She’d never been more sure, but saying so might be coming on a little strong. And certainty didn’t mean she wasn
’t a little nervous.
“Then what do you want to know?”
“What does it feel like?”
Chapter 27
Dmitri’s gaze raked over Sonya’s tempting body, and her nipples hardened under her new sweater. Inside him, a war raged between some honorable ideal, and giving her what she wanted, which he sure as hell wanted too. He’d already resolved to spoil her. Maybe giving in was the nobler path.
“You want to know what it feels like?” He reached for her breast, stroking with his thumb.
Arching her back, she pressed into his hand and purred. “Mmm hmm.”
“You mean physically?”
“I don’t know. I guess. But more the whole thing. What does it feel like in here?” Again, she pressed her hand over his heart. He’d hardly known the damn thing was there until she’d showed up and insisted on touching it all the time.
Her question bounced around in his mind. How many of the women he’d been with had made him feel anything? Two or three, tops—a few girls who were more than just pretty, who’d tried to discover the real him, which is probably why he’d pushed them away after a few nights together. He already knew he was a hopeless project. But sex with them had been different, for sure—intense, demanding all his concentration, and more intimate and satisfying because of it. Altogether too fucking real. But that was exactly what Sonya deserved—that raw connection.
“When it’s good, ghost, it makes you feel alive.”
“You’ve done it a lot?”
His throat constricted and he choked out a cough. Yeah, he was not going there with her. “Let’s just say more than you have.”
“What will we do?”
He cleared his throat. “Sweetheart, you were twenty-four years old. Please tell me you know—”
“Of course I do.” She smacked her palm against her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut. “I just meant, how do we get started?” Staring at the tiny veins that crossed under the thin skin of her eyelids, he finally understood the sudden onset of twenty questions. She was nervous.
“We didn’t seem to have any trouble in the dressing room.” He winked and laced his thumb through one of her belt loops, tugging her closer. “But here’s an idea. Did you see that nice big bathtub?”
She nodded. “Sure.”
“I think it might help you relax.”
Her eyes popped open and she grinned. “Race you.” And then she let go of him, ghosting out of her clothes and swishing into the bathroom. He followed and stood in the doorway as she hovered over the tub, watching. He shed his shirt and then stripped off his pants, his cock already erect. He expected her eyes to grow wide, or that she’d do that sweet ghost blushing thing. Instead, her gaze took all of him in before she met his eye and floated forward, reaching for him. The ice of her ghost touch prickled him for only a second before her warm hand enclosed his erection.
He sucked in a surprised breath. With a hint of regret, he gripped her wrist and tugged it away from his cock. “Sweetheart, slow down, let me turn on the water.”
She ghosted on him again, leaving behind a wet nightgown in a pool at his feet. Chuckling and naked, he bent over to fill the tub, dumping a bottle of bubble bath under the stream of water.
With her rusalka voice cranked to full blast, she said, “Dmitri Lisko, I could look at that all day.” His skin came alive, and he wanted her against him rubbing and slipping in the sudsy water.
He reached for her, and she flitted away. He lunged again.
Silly ghost.
“Suit yourself.” He stepped into the tub, sinking into the water up to his waist. “The water feels great.”
She huffed, crossing her arms across her chest. “Now I can’t see you.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Get in here then.”
And finally, she obeyed, gliding into the water and coming back into her flesh against his wet skin. He worked another nightgown off her and threw it. The wet fabric slapped against the mirror over the sink. Then he wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed her with as much gentleness as he could muster.
How many times, how many nights could they have together like this? If he did his job, maybe only this one. She deserved for it to be everything she’d ever dreamed of.
Tucking a lock of her hair back, he licked the coil of her ear. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
She sat back, fixing him with a look of concentration. He expected her to argue, but she grinned. With her index finger, she traced a line from his forehead, down his nose, and pressed it to his lips. “I know what you mean.”
His heart swelled to near bursting. He sucked her finger into his mouth, and she lowered her lids. Her grin turned lazy. He withdrew her hand from his mouth and pressed it between her legs. She rocked into the touch.
“When you were alive, sweetheart, did you ever…?”
There was the blush he’d been waiting for.
“Good. We’re not starting from scratch.”
She bit her lip, not quite hiding her smile.
He slid his fingers through her folds, searching out her bud. It rose up under the pad of his thumb, and she let out an animal groan. He rubbed her in small circles, and she ground against him, throwing back her head.
Yeah, she was a natural.
His free hand went to heft one gorgeous breast.
Delving back to her opening, he found her moisture, thicker and more slippery than the bathwater. He wanted to taste her but suspected that particular pleasure might shock her unconscious, and the whole point of this was to be alive. So he teased her open with only the tip of his finger. “What about this, Sonya? Did you ever?”
She shook her head, freezing when he slid one careful finger into her very tight core.
Finally, she let out a breath. “Oh?”
“Hurt?”
“No.”
He curved the finger upward and thrust.
“Oh.” Her pitch remained well in the husky range.
He smiled. This gift he was giving her might very well be the best gift he’d ever received. In the tub, she responded to him quickly, riding his fingers, becoming so wet and so open he knew he could take her right there. But he wanted her coming first, on his fingers and tongue, so that she had some practice before he pushed his cock all the way inside her.
Without a word of explanation, he carried her back to the bed and threw her, dripping, onto that shiny bedspread. He spread her legs and buried his face between them before she could protest. She smelled like a river, earthy with a hint of ocean salt pulled upstream by the ebb of the tide. Maybe she smelled like flowers too, but he wouldn’t know. He laved one long stroke up her center.
“Dmitri? Oh!”
He chuckled against her tender flesh.
Pressing two fingers inside her and thrusting, he sucked her clit into his mouth and licked. Her orgasm came like a crashing wave, rolling down his fingers. The force of her hips and clenching muscles sent tremors down his arm. He lapped until her pulsing stopped and her breathing steadied. Then he stood. For a split second, he forgot he couldn’t let go. She ghosted, crying out.
He grabbed her fast, holding her tight. “Fuck. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
She shook, wet all over again, but tried to reassure him. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Get this stupid nightgown off me.”
He locked her legs around his hips and ripped the damn thing from neck to hem. His cock was so hard it was weeping. Hadn’t even thought about a condom. Would she still be wet? He reached between them to find her hot and pulsing. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” She smiled as if the sadness of her words had passed her by.
He pressed into her slowly, letting her adjust to him. Inch by inch, her body resisted and then melted into softest flesh around him. Her shallow breaths became the rhythm of his heart. Her eyes remained wide and locked on his.
“I like this,” she said when he was all the
way inside.
“Me too, sweetheart.” He gripped her hips, pulled out and thrust in.
She gasped. A man couldn’t get enough of a sound like that. He thrust again. When the angle exhausted her little noises, he pushed her onto the bed and knelt between her legs, tilting her pelvis up to receive him.
She squeezed him so tightly. Glancing up at her lovely face, he was humbled by her rapture—chin up, half-lidded eyes focused on him, rosebud lips parted in a sensuous smile. She was made to be loved like this, made to share this pleasure. In a perfect world, he would be the man to make her feel this way every night, a man she was proud to let into her bed and body when he came home from some noble occupation without a drop of blood on his hands.
It was a fantasy, of course, but one part was in his grasp. He could be that man, starting tonight. No more blood. Not even Makar’s. It wasn’t necessary after all.
Her eyes flew open, her gasp turned to a moan, and she raised her hips to meet his forceful thrusts, contracting around him like her body never wanted to let him go.
His last thrust was a prayer and then he exploded inside her.
Chapter 28
As far as Sonya could tell, whatever had changed inside Dmitri was nothing short of miraculous. More smiles had graced his handsome face in the last half hour than she had seen in the twenty-four since they’d met. Elena would be pleased that her nephew had passed through his crossroads and journeyed a fair distance down the high road they both wanted for him.
They’d laughed and talked all the way through a picnic dinner on the bed. Together, they’d polished off a cheese plate, Dmitri had eaten a ham sandwich, and she’d used the last of the rolls with shrimp and mint to scrape up the yummy peanut sauce. He’d said they were Vietnamese. They tasted fine, but she’d have preferred just a spoon and a bowl of the sauce.
She licked some off her fingers and then ran their tips up and down his torso, from rippling abdominal muscles to broad chest and down again. Even lying down, he held himself differently, straighter but more relaxed.
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