Authors: Amber Belldene
He lifted the sleeve of a soft, pink sweater, the sort with an inviting halo of fuzz. He wanted her to wear it, to see her robed in its fleecy plushness, a gentleness, a kindness the world never offered her. And he wanted to show her off, wanted her to see the way men would look at her. Stas Demyan wasn’t the only one who could appreciate her, and the son of a bitch had done a damn poor job of it. A serial predator who stole futures from women.
“Wear this,” he said.
“That’s a lovely top.” The stylist assembled more pieces as she spoke. “And it perfectly suits these brown trousers, and the ankle boots.”
“Yes.” Anya nodded, her eyes wide and sparkling. “I’d love to wear this.” She trailed her elegant fingers over the sweater and lowered her voice to a whisper. “It feels so good, Sergey. Like the towels, and the bed.”
The stylist, well within hearing distance, pulled her brows into a quizzical expression. Sonya did sound strange, like she was a little simple, or an alien from a strange planet, as the bellhops had thought. Really, she was just a sense-starved ghost, craving touch and warmth and softness.
Deeper than reason, deeper than right and wrong, the animal part of his brain whispered,
You can give her those things. Every sensual experience she craves.
But good cop wasn’t just an act he put on in the interrogation room. He lived the part. And so from him, Anya would have to settle for a soft sweater and breakfast.
Once the stylist left, Sergey bargained for a shower all alone, trying not to succumb to the fear Anya barely hid behind the haughty lift of her chin, her shrug and clipped reply, “Fine.”
He wanted to wrap her up in every kind of protection he could offer like he’d swaddled her in that towel. But she was strong. She didn’t need protection, no matter how much he wanted to give it.
When she went ghost, the dress she wore fell to the floor, and the spectral nightie hugged her again, her nipples hard through the wet satin. With a blank, empty-eyed expression, she drifted to the window.
He showered as quickly as he could, shaking off the ache of her absence. Weird that he’d gotten used to her so fast, when he’d been almost desperate to say good-bye to Iryna.
He pulled on fresh jeans and the best shirt he’d brought, knowing he would still look like a slob at her side in the smart outfit they’d picked. In the sitting area of their suite, a gentle breeze stirred, and Anya’s ghostly skin sparkled.
Whatever she’d seen out there, whatever she’d remembered, the
vila
was waking.
Better get her back in her skin fast to keep the ghost at bay. He tried for a cheerful, normal tone. “Ready?”
“It’s not really something you can get ready for, dying. It’s like brand new, every time.”
Shit. And he’d put her through that just to shower by himself. Selfish prick.
He held out one of the thick towels to her, stretching it the breadth of his arm-span.
This is my friendship, and protection, for as long as you need it.
Her gaze flicked from it to his eyes, and a reluctant smiled hatched on her lush lips like a chick attempting to break free of an egg. She’d understood what he offered, and she whooshed into his embrace with supernatural grace.
First came the cold of her touch at the nape of his neck, then the weight of her against his chest.
She gasped. Sputtered. Coughed.
“Shh. I’ve got you.” He stroked her hair.
As she quieted and the shivers set in, he used the towel to rub friction and heat into her arms. She clung to him, and the shimmer of sparkly
vila
clung to her, though it faded slowly as he toweled her off. Then he had no more excuses to hold her, and it was time to get her dressed.
Again, he dropped to her ankle and gritted his teeth as she slid on the lacy rose-colored panties sent by Sonya, who’d thought of everything. Even if he was damned curious to see the shadow of her pubic hair through the lace, to know just how the line of the lingerie would fall against those sharp hipbones.
Will. Not. Look.
“Sergey.”
He glanced up.
Fuck. Flat, fair belly. The faintest blue veins underneath her skin. The undersides of her small breasts, nipples proudly pointing upward as haughty as her chin.
He looked down again, his body flaring like the noonday sun had just emerged from behind a cloud to radiate heat upon him. “Yeah?”
“Maybe it’s just memories, but I have this feeling.” She touched her belly and winced. “Stas is here in Odessa.”
The hairs on the back of Sergey’s neck rose up. This was quite possibly his day of reckoning. Finally, he might ask his father what he’d done to Oksana, and then maybe he could throttle the son of a bitch for two women’s sakes. Or just let Anya have at him instead.
Her stomach growled something fierce, and she laughed. “Or maybe I’m just hungry.”
“Okay. Breakfast first. Then we’ll go to the office of records.”
They brushed their teeth side by side, Anya using a brush Sonya had sent along with other basic toiletries and cosmetics. Then he sat on the counter while she applied a little make-up. He’d never watched a woman besides his mother do it, and there was something so ordinary and mundane about it. He could almost pretend they were a normal couple heading out for a brunch date. Not like he did brunch dates normally.
They left the room hand in hand. Two doors down, Anya stopped suddenly, mid-step. He kept going and almost lost his grip on her hand.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t…” She leaned forward, but some invisible force yanked her backward with enough power she almost lost her balance. Her free hand clawed at her neck and her mouth twisted in anger. “Ugh.” The guttural cry of frustration came from deep in her little body. “I hate that slipper!”
Shit. How could he have forgotten?
She closed her eyes and squeezed his hand, drawing in deep breaths, seemingly as shocked as he was that for a moment they’d both forgotten what she was--a ghost, and dead, and stuck to a ballet shoe until she had her revenge.
“It’s okay.” He pulled her close and murmured into her hair, which smelled of the flowery hotel soap. “We’ll get you free.”
She sniffed, nodding and wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “Let’s go get it.”
Back in the hotel room, among the new clothes hanging in the closet, Anya found a purse to match the boots. Sergey spotted a label dangling from its strap. The tag read,
For your slipper
. It seemed Sonya had indeed thought of everything. Wordlessly, they worked as a team, him holding the leather handles open while she slid the shoebox inside.
They walked through Center City, which bustled with tourists and commuters. A line snaked around the outside of Vadim’s bistro, but when little Rita spotted him through the kitchen door, she skipped outside and brought them in through the rear entrance. Vadim cleared extra menus and boxes of sugar packets away, making two places at the kitchen-end of the bar. He shook Sergey’s hand and slapped him on the back, then grinned at Anya like she was the first girl Sergey had ever brought around, which she was.
When all this was over and she went gallivanting off with a bunch of wild
vilas
, he would have a hell of a time explaining to his pal why he let this one get away.
Someone had discarded a newspaper on the counter. Anya grabbed it and traced her finger over the date. She’d felt each one of those days tick by, and yet it still seemed impossible they were already so far into the twenty-first century. The headline read
Brothers Found Dead
. She began to skim the article, which described how the three men had drowned, shackled to a cinderblock and sunk in the harbor near the lighthouse sometime yesterday. Fishermen discovered their bodies at low tide. The article’s photograph showed them being loaded into an ambulance in black body bags. Anyone with information about the crime was requested to call the local
politsiya
.
How horrible. Anya pitied the men and their watery deaths.
Sergey cleared his throat and tugged the newspaper away, replacing it with a menu. “I can hear your stomach rumbling.”
Everything on the menu sounded divine. But last night’s lavish order of room service, most of which they’d wheeled right back out into the hall, had taught Anya that her imagination was far bigger than her stomach.
Oh, but restraint didn’t come easy. She’d eaten two meals in fifty years. Could she really be expected to decide between an omelet with fresh parsley and gruyere, or French toast with apple compote? She pinned a finger to each item on the menu and scanned to see if there was anything even more tempting that she’d missed on her first pass.
“We could share, if you’re having trouble deciding.” He leaned close enough to whisper, and she shivered with the pleasure of his warm breath in her ear. “And neither really require a knife, so they’re pretty easy eating.”
Sergey’s friend Vadim rested his elbows on the countertop, and he didn’t have to stoop much to do it. He had a wide, pockmarked face and a dark, scraggly beard, but his smile could increase the wattage in any room. Anya liked him the moment she saw all his even teeth on display behind that beautiful grin.
He pulled a pencil from behind his ear. “What’ll it be?”
Sergey raised his brows, and she nodded her assent to the plan.
“French toast, a cheese omelet, and--”
The little girl called Rita appeared with a glass so full it sloshed its impossibly green contents over the side. “Look, Sergey. We added fresh juices to the menu. This one is wheatgrass, celery, and apple.”
“Mmm,” Anya muttered. “Sounds like something Stas would have made me drink until I lost two pounds.”
Sergey cleared his throat. “One for me, please, but not for Anya. She’ll have a hot cocoa, extra whipped cream.”
Rita smiled at her, the girl’s round cheeks so full and cheery the expression actually raised her pink-rimmed eyeglasses up a few millimeters. “I’ll tell them to put extra chocolate shavings on for you too.” The girl skipped off, and Vadim followed.
“She’s his daughter?” Anya asked, searching for some resemblance between the fair girl and the cafe’s olive-skinned owner, who was clipping their order up in front of the cook.
“Yeah. Lucky kid. She looks like her mom.”
She tugged at her dad’s apron, and he’d turned down and smiled at her warmly. Anya’s father had never looked at her with such unabashed affection. It was hard not to envy the girl.
“You know her mom?”
“I met Vadim through Natasha.” It seemed like the opening to a story, and yet instead of continuing, he arranged his napkin in his lap.
“Well…?”
He actually blushed. “It was just a work thing.”
Had he dated her? If so, it seemed unlikely he would be a close friend to her husband.
“What kind of work thing? She’s an investigator?” Anya had been impressed to see a few women detectives in his department. “Or a secretary?” Which had been a typical job for a woman even in 1968.
“No. It was on a case.” His color deepened, a streak of strawberry across each high cheek.
She wanted to kiss them both, to tell him she wouldn’t judge him if he’d messed something up at work. What ground could she stand on, she who had proven to be inadequate at achieving her dreams? Instead of kissing his embarrassed cheeks, she rested her free hand on his knee. “I want to hear the story.”
“It happened back when I was a beat cop. I didn’t even know she was pregnant with Rita at the time. She wasn’t showing yet. And really, I was just doing my job, anybody--”
“What happened?” He was rambling, as if she might forget the point of his story.
“She worked at a little corner grocery. A junkie--a drug addict--came in with a gun, wanted the contents of the register and the safe, but she didn’t have the combination. He held her hostage, demanded she call the manager. That’s when I showed up, started talking to the guy…” He wiped at a non-existent smudge on the counter.
Inspector Effortlessly Charming had negotiated her release. No wonder they got to skip to the head of the breakfast line. “So you’re a hero?”
He shook his head. “Maybe to Vadim, but officially, I was reprimanded. Protocol said I had to wait for the official hostage negotiator, but Natasha was so scared. And the guy was an open book, what he wanted, what he feared--it was all on display. I knew I could talk him into handing over his weapon.”
He folded the corner of his napkin. “I’m lucky that black mark didn’t keep me from the promotion to investigator, but when I applied, a couple of my buddies spun the story to make me look like the hero, and Lisko put in a good word, said more or less the same thing. When a guy like him calls you valiant, people listen, whether it’s true or not. So, like I said, I got lucky.”
A waiter slid an enormous mug across the bar toward Anya, the swirl of cream deflating atop the steaming cocoa. She picked off a chocolate shaving and popped it into her mouth, letting it melt on her tongue. “Does your luck ever run out?”
His exhaled breath made his lips buzz. “Oh, I get lucky all the time, but rarely about stuff that matters. Natasha and my promotion are definitely the exception.”
The little blonde angel skipped by again with a pair of salt and pepper shakers. “But you saved her. And just look how much her papa loves her.” Her voice cracked.
He squeezed her fingers as she took a sip of the hot cocoa. She closed her eyes. It was hard to say what was better. The decadent cashmere of her sweater, the rich sweetness of chocolate in her mouth, or the gentle warmth of Sergey’s calloused hand holding hers.
A prickle of heat on her cheek told her he was looking at her.
“What?”
He lowered his voice to a growly whisper, the sound of which deserved to be on her list of sensual pleasures. “I like watching you eat.”
The heat spread down her neck, her chest, and into her belly.
She didn’t want this meal to end, didn’t want to go hunting for Demyan when she could pretend to be alive with Sergey. She waited for the
vila
to rage at the prospect, to begin the insistent chant about finding Stas and killing him. Nothing.