The Siren's Touch (19 page)

“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?”

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.

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.

She propped herself on one elbow. “Do you feel alive?”

“More than I have in a long time.” He tilted her chin, brushing his lips across her mouth. “Thank you, ghost.”

She wanted to ask exactly what had changed for him in that explosive moment when her body had caught fire and the flames had jumped to his, and then they’d stared into one another’s eyes as they both burned right up. But deeper than she knew many things, she was certain he wouldn’t answer.

She turned her attention back to his god-like muscles. “I don’t think men looked like you when I was alive. It’s a pity. Maybe I wouldn’t have died a spinster virgin.”

He laughed. “I’m glad I could take care of that problem for you. And I’d say the pity is that women don’t look like you anymore.”

A blush heated her face. His big hand cupped her breast, which had also pinked. Since she was already embarrassed, it was a good time to ask. “Can we do it again?”

“Soon, sweetheart, I need a few more minutes.”

“Oh.” She trailed her hands down his stomach to where his penis lay flaccid against his thigh, now so different from the rigid thing he’d used to lovingly batter her. With her fingers gently grasping him, she rose up to her knees, inspired.

“Sonya?”

“Hmm?”

“What are you doing?”

She answered him with her mouth—but not with words.

His hips bucked off the bed. “Hell. Where did you get that idea?”

She pushed up. “Do you want me to stop?” Anya had once told her men enjoyed this activity. At the time, she’d been shocked, but the idea had grown on her. Perhaps it had been a mistake.

But he was already growing hard in her hands, answering her before he spoke. When he did, there was more laughter in his voice. “No, sweetheart, I don’t want you to stop.”

He tasted salty and sweet, which must have been the taste of her own body. The skin of his shaft was unbelievably soft, like the chubby thigh of a baby, but he grew as hard as bone underneath. She teased him with her tongue and somehow wound up with half the thing in her mouth. She gave sucking on it a try, and he responded with enthusiastic moans.

“That feels real good, ghost.” He stroked her hair and down her arm almost worshipfully.

And then she couldn’t stand for him not to be inside her. She climbed up his body and slid onto him, doing her best to mimic his thrusts from earlier. He gripped her hips and rolled his pelvis under her, pushing against that sensitive spot above her opening. She got the idea and ground down, rocking her hips so that his erection stroked her inside and then his pubic bone stroked her outside. The motion was like the lazy splash of waves on the side of a boat, slow and rhythmic, building up a glorious pressure within her. She closed her eyes and rode, soaking up every sensation in her body, burning it into her memory, so that wherever she went next, she would never forget this moment, or this man.