The energy still churned inside her, swirling outward, but she fought the power with all the force of her will, drawing the fury back into herself inch by inch. Slowly, the room grew quiet and still.
Yuchenko shrugged. “Don’t be stupid. It’s just a breeze coming from the window.” He pointed to an inch-wide crack he’d opened before he left, blatantly ignoring the debris littering the room.
“Nah. Something else is going on here,” Oleg said, as if he were an authority on unexplained phenomenon because he read books and watched television shows about--what had he called it?--paranormal shit.
“Yes. I’d say so,” Yuchenko agreed. “Namely, an illegal entry of my hotel room. Now get out of here before I lodge a complaint, or call my buddy over at station six.”
The authority in his voice sent an odd shiver of excitement through her. He was a good man to have on her side.
“Yes, sir.” They turned tail in perfect timing, as if someone had choreographed the move.
He shut the door behind them and locked the chain.
“All right?” he asked, even though he couldn’t possibly hear a reply.
“Yes,” she answered, knowing he would be deaf to it.
He smiled toward the center of the room, guessing right about her general direction. “Miss me?”
“Yes,” she admitted, because he couldn’t hear.
He fished in his pocket, his brow furrowed in concentration. “You did good, calming yourself down just now.”
She inflated with pride, her ghost form swelling like a puff of air had been blown into her.
“Here.” He found what he was looking for and pulled out the ring, holding the loop open so she could thread her head through it.
She whooshed toward him. The weight of the makeshift necklace settled on her, a slight pressure. It was a touch heavier but not as effective as the way Yuchenko had grounded her just by walking in the room. Unlike in that field, she didn’t float away as soon as he could see her. Instead, she hovered a mere foot from his face, watching in fascination as a gorgeous grin took hold of his mouth.
“Hi,” he said, his pleasure at seeing her evident at the corners of his eyes and the lift of his bronze-kissed cheeks.
If she’d had a heart, it would have fluttered.
“Hi.” She grinned back, even if her every instinct screamed pretend you couldn’t care less. “Thanks for saving me from Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.”
“My pleasure. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw them there. I worried someone had stolen your slipper. Lisko would kill me.”
Right. Lisko. This puppy didn’t actually give a damn about her. He was in the old guy’s debt.
She crossed her arms over her chest and whooshed backward, colliding with the wall and ghosting right through.
Drat. Not the most graceful exit she’d ever managed.
Chapter 12
She was gone. He’d said that thing about Lisko, and her lovely, unrestrained smile had fallen, and she’d flown backward right through the damn wall. If it had been someone else, he might have thought she’d taken offense, read into his words the implication that he’d only been concerned about her because of Gregor, when, in fact, after that strange phone call, he’d been scared to death for her.
But this was tough little Anya, so of course he hadn’t said any of that. He didn’t want to frighten her off by hinting he’d taken a bit of a liking to her. Only a fool tried to pet a porcupine. And he didn’t even have a clue how to approach a soft little bunny, if said bunny wasn’t trying to drag him into a dark corner for fifteen minutes.
“Anya, come back. Anya…” He picked up Gregor’s ring from where it had fallen and held it up. He waited, but nothing happened.
Had he really hurt her feelings? That required she have some, other than anger. But of course she did, along with her sense of humor and her concern for her sister and that abject fear of being alone. Christ, he’d been smiling, and then she had too, and then he’d put his giant foot all the way into his mouth.
“Anya. I’m sorry. Really.”
Still nothing. Maybe she’d gone this time for real, and he would have to make nice with Gregor and find Demyan on his own.
The prospect left him cold.
Better to risk his pride, and her blustery temper. Still holding up the ring as he had before, he said, “When I saw those idiots standing in the doorway, my heart flew into my throat. I was so worried about you--that they might see you or hurt you, that I couldn’t protect you.”
A gentle wind rippled through the room and his gut clenched in embarrassment over the confession. He was probably only inviting her mockery. But he persisted. Letting the necklace dangle from his thumb and little finger, he turned up his palm, an offering. When Dmitri had handed over Anya’s shoebox, he’d reported that a ghost’s touch felt like getting dry humped by a slug.
Aside from the slime, slugs were pretty harmless. Sergey would risk it, if she would accept his hand in apology. “I’m sorry, Anya.”
First, the necklace tugged like a minnow on a fishing line, then icy needles prickled his palm. Strange, but not as skin crawling as Dmitri had implied. Except then, something grasped his hand. Cool, hard, firm skin. Not just a ghost--flesh and blood--Anya’s.
His heart jumped as if touched by a live wire, and his gaze flew past her small hand and up her lean arm to her beautiful wide-eyed face. Mouth agape, she was clearly as shocked as he was to be in her skin.
“How?” Her features twisted in panic and she doubled over, coughing, gagging on the memory of the water that had choked out her life.
Shit. The same thing had happened in the interrogation room.
He held her hand firmly just as the ailing Lisko had, pounding on her back with his other until she stopped spluttering.
When she began to breathe easy, he let out a long, slow breath. “Anya?”
“Obviously.” She wrapped her free arm around her torso and shivered. Her teeth chattered, but she held his hand tightly, looked down at her feet and flexed them so that she stood on her tippy-toes, a semblance of point without slippers, as water dripped down her legs.
“You’re real.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was always real.”
“But…Lisko said…”
She blew a dismissive burst of air from her nose. “What does he know?”
“A hell of a lot more about ghosts than I do. Until I met you, I was sure they didn’t exist.” He cupped her cold, sharp shoulder with his free hand. “Wait, are you saying you knew this would happen?”
Her eyes flashed, and she caught her lower lip with her teeth for a split second before raising her chin. “Nothing surprises me anymore.”
So much fear and uncertainty hidden inside this little slip of a ghost. But she wasn’t an ethereal specter now. She was a beautiful, flesh-and-blood woman, standing very near, close enough to radiate warmth in spite of her damp nightie. And even with her prideful expression, she squeezed his hand hard, like it was her lifeline, which it more or less was. With every passing second, he gathered more proof her prickly personality was all defense. In response, an unfamiliar desire flowed through his veins. He wanted to be her protection instead.
“Let’s rewind for a sec.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“This.” He pulled her into an embrace, hugged her trim, graceful, and damp form snug to him. “I am damn glad to see you, and that you’re all right.”
She relaxed against him and sighed, the breath escaping her like a purr. He tried not to let it go to his head, or his cock. No easy task. She felt so delicate, yet powerful, so feminine, so--just good. He couldn’t help but want her naked, nothing between him and all that fine, creamy skin.
But presumably, no one had held her in all those ghost years, and possibly, Demyan was the last to do so in life. She just needed a hug. Her cuddly response didn’t mean anything more.
She nuzzled her dainty, slightly pointy
nose into his chest. “God, Yuchenko, you smell good.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“Is it some kind of cologne? French or American?”
“Nope, just soap.” And probably sweat, but he’d keep that part to himself. Woman often told him he smelled good when they dragged him into dark corners. Pheromones or something.
“Soap. That figures,” she said, but he had no idea what to make of it.
“You know, you could call me Sergey.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She pulled back far enough to look at him, shaking her head, a crease forming between her dark brows. “What’s going on? Sonya said only Gregor’s touch would make me real.”
“I know.”
“And in the lobby, I blew through a businessman and nothing happened.”
“So it’s me?” Sergey tried to bury all his theories about what this might mean deep enough that she wouldn’t sense his secret and grow suspicious.
She nodded and squeezed his hand tighter. Her throat rippled with a swallow.
“It will be okay, Anya. We’ll find him. We’ll get you back to Gregor, and you can live again.
She nodded again and searched his face, and then she wrapped her free hand around his waist and burrowed closer to him.
She squeezed a shocked half-sigh half-grunt right out of him. “Ugh.”
No one ever wanted to cuddle with him. Usually, women left him wearing huge smiles on their lips and rosy glows on their cheeks, while he stood stunned, still half hard, a used condom dangling from his dick. Sometimes, they gave him a peckish kiss and said, “Thanks, hon, I needed that.”
After the same scenario had occurred a dozen times, he’d grabbed a fleeing bank teller’s arm. “Wait! Why are you running off? Was it…bad?”
He’d had to ask, in spite of her gasps and her dirty talk, and the way she’d clenched and spasmed around him in an orgasm that might have earned her a world record for longest ever.
“Bad? You’re a hoot.” She’d burst out laughing and, honest to God, limped away, leaving him scratching his head.
But Anya--she wasn’t running anywhere. She was trying to get closer, which would be impossible with their clothes on. And the clothes had to stay on, because in spite of her denial, he was certain she’d had an affair with his father, which made her as off-limits as a woman could get.
“I know I shouldn’t get used to it, and I should probably be worried about why it happened, but it’s so nice to have a body.” Anya’s words were muffled against his chest. She’d snaked her hand up to circle the nape of his neck and scraped her nails up into his hair. The sensation along his scalp sent tingles followed by goose bumps down his spine.
He gritted his teeth. Friendly hug.
She just needed a little human contact after all that time alone. She needed to be held and cared for by someone who wouldn’t belittle her. And he might just need a hug too, to make up for all those cuddle-less fucks, and the creeping chill he couldn’t shake after that phone call.
“Yeah. I’ll call Dmitri and give him the third degree.” With his free hand, he stroked up her back, as platonic a gesture as he could manage with her so close, and tried to ignore how it pressed her small, perfect breasts against his torso. How her hard nipples poked against his shirt, how fragile her vertebrae felt, how trim her waist.
“How’s your mom?” she asked. An unexpected and kind question, almost like a hug in itself.
“She’s doing better than ever, thanks to Gregor.”
Anya moved away just enough to look into his face. “What’s wrong with her?”
Sergey wanted Anya closer, but he wouldn’t dare pull her again, so he just kept a firm grip on her hand.
“She’s a depressive. Has been my whole life. It can get bad, to where she won’t take care of herself, but today--hell, today she’d gotten dressed, put on lipstick, and she was painting. She’s never had a hobby.” His hopefulness sent the words spilling out of him.
Anya smiled back, mirroring his expression like an ideal listener. They’d taught him that trick in inspector training. It didn’t do much for Sergey when his partner wore the look, but on Anya, that tuned-in smile could make a man feel special. Maybe because on her, it wasn’t some interrogation tactic.
“And had she heard of Demyan?”
Well, shit. That line of questioning could surface the parts of his past that were sure to turn her uncooperative, and she felt very, very cooperative at the moment. In fact, how could he tell her about that phone call without giving his secret away? Good thing all his practice interrogating suspects made him an expert at telling some truths without showing his hand.
He danced around her question easily. “Mama couldn’t tell me anything. That studio is still our only lead. I’ll go down to the office of city archives tomorrow and see if we can find him through the property records.”
“Okay.” Her fear bled into the word. Then her stomach growled, and she winced as if he would scold her. Fucking Demyan, controlling her every bite.
He squeezed her hand and added a measure of casual to his tone so she didn’t hear his hatred for her abuser and take it as judgment upon her. “You’re hungry?”
“Starved.” She wore her rare, sheepish I-just-caused-a-tornado expression.
They both looked down to her midsection at the same time. Her flat abdomen, the shadowed hollow of her belly button under the wet satin nightie. He had the absurd desire to dip his tongue inside it, a first taste of her irresistibly creamy skin.
How truly fucked up he was that he wanted this woman more than he could ever remember wanting another, and she’d slept with his father. It had to be some broken part of him that refused to be healthy, that couldn’t want the things a normal, happy man should, that couldn’t form a lasting attachment with one of the nice, pretty girls who happily fucked him in a broom closet.
Anya’s stomach rumbled again. She pressed one palm against it and shifted her weight, just barely brushing her hip against his semi hard--make that very hard--cock.
He cleared his throat, took hold of her waist with both hands, and put some inches between them. “We better feed you, but I can’t exactly take you out for dinner in that.”
“I can wear your coat.”
“It would swallow you whole. And you don’t have any shoes.”
She wriggled her toes. “Good point.”
He glanced around the room as if a petite-sized wardrobe might appear as unexpectedly as she’d materialized at this touch. No luck, but his phone did ring.
“Allow me.” She snaked her small hand into his pocket, surely in no way intending to be seductive, and yet, God…
“I’ve been dying to see how one of these works.” Her face had lit up with curiosity. “Oh, look, it says Lisko. Is this green circle like a button?” She didn’t wait for a reply, just pressed the screen and then held the device to her ear. “Hello?”
“Anya?” The muffled voice of Dmitri came over the line. “What the hell?”
“Hello, Dima.” Along with the false warmth, her use of the intimate form of Dmitri’s name when he’d called her a harpy was a sharp little jab. On the other hand, the fact she wasn’t false or especially sharp with Sergey anymore was as good as another accidental stroke to his cock.
“Did you need to speak with Inspector Yuchenko?” Her tone dripped with helplessness.
“Put him on the phone, Anya,” he growled loud enough for Sergey to hear.
“Of course, right away.” Over a wide and mischievous grin, she winked at Sergey. His heart decided to mark the moment with several skipped beats.
“She’s answering your phone?” Lisko asked when Sergey put the device to his ear.
“More importantly, she turned flesh and blood.” And she’s standing between my legs, smelling like a woman warmed by the autumn sun and smiling, and I’m the biggest sucker in the world.
“Impossible.”
“So you said
.”
“How did it happen? Did you find Demyan already?”
“Nope. So now it’s time for you to come clean. How exactly are you married to a dead girl, who is by all evidence not a ghost? And why is her sister materializing at my touch?”
“Yours? Shit. You better watch out. You must have pissed her off, and the rusalka’s out to get you.”
Anya had started exploring Sergey, a fingertip down his stubbly jaw, then along the collar of his T-shirt, then down the open zipper of his leather coat. She flashed him an impish grin, as if she knew she was as distracting as hell and that mischief was her only goal. But beneath that smile, he sensed her curiosity and evident need for human contact, and boy--he gritted his teeth. That part was so not helping him.
But he was almost sure the ghost inside her was not out to get him. If anything, he had the sinking feeling all of this was about his dear old dad. Also, that Sonya wasn’t a rusalka.
Once, he might have been cowed by Dmitri Lisko, heavyweight failure and mean-ass enforcer to one of the most powerful men in Kiev. But now, Sergey had bigger shit to worry about.
“Tell me about Sonya.”
Dmitri exhaled into the phone. “Guess I owe you that much, for dragging you into this situation.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“I was in San Francisco looking for this guy who’d betrayed my dad, Ivan, and Gregor all those years ago, the one who sent Ivan to prison. When--and I guess this won’t surprise you after meeting Anya--a ghost pops out of my Auntie Elena’s teapot. I decided to help her, and then I accidentally touched her, and she turned real.”
“Okay. Same as me and Anya.”
She’d begun to trace his waistband, but thank God, at the sound of her name, she stopped and met his gaze.
“You all right, Yuchenko? You’re breathing hard.”
“Fine. Just ran the stairs before you called. You know me--slip in a workout wherever I can.”
Dmitri chuckled. “Yeah, right. You spooked, or are you getting the siren treatment?”
“Just the stairs, man.” His present reaction to Anya had nothing to do with her being a siren, just a sexy, flesh-and-blood woman.
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