The Siren's Touch (3 page)

“What is your name?” Her voice came out strange—low and melodic, full of new timbres.

The oddly beautiful sound seemed to affect him. He stood and bowed his head. “I’m Dmitri Ivanovych Lisko.”

“You will help me?” With the power in her voice, it wasn’t really a question.

He fell back to one knee. “Anything, girl.”

What the hell was wrong with him?

She looked like a drowned rat. An adorable—no, a beautiful, sexy drowned rat. A looping curl of hair plastered itself to her forehead and seemed stuck there, fixed by her death. And that nightgown—fuck, it was wet, not a tiny bit drier than when she’d emerged from the pot. Her mouth was a sweet rosebud, and he wanted to brush the pad of his thumb across it.

And across those hard, dark nipples straining toward him—Ukrainian women didn’t have curves like that, at least not anymore. They had tight salon-tanned bodies nourished only by raw vegetables, cigarettes and vodka, not lush hips that made his palms sweat.

Also, they weren’t dead.

Which was exactly his problem. He had a major hard-on for a ghost.

A frightened, beautiful ghost. With flashing obsidian gems for eyes, fringed by thick lashes, batting at him flirtatiously.

Was she coming on to him in some weird ghost way? Her skin glowed like a pearly, rippling surface of water, her nightgown a thin ivory veil over it. A dusky pink tinted her lips and her nipples, and even—unexpectedly—her smooth cheeks.

“I need something, Dmitri.” Her voice was low and husky, tuned perfectly to the wavelength of his cock, pulling it hard to attention. No, that wasn’t right. Sure, she was hot, but the way his dick was reacting to her was not…normal.

He tried to play it cool. “Yeah? What’s that?”

“I need help finding someone.” She tipped her head forward and gazed up at him. Her voice slid over his skin like a tongue down his shaft, weakening him, bending him to her will.

He retreated. “What are you doing to me?”

Her luminous white hand covered her face, and her shining brown eyes darted away, clouded. “Nothing. I am doing nothing.”

He shivered with the need growing low in his gut, awakening his entire body. Was he completely nuts? He turned his back on her, striding toward the hallway where Elena had vanished. Then he thought twice and crossed to the front door. Maybe some air and another smoke—

The tinkling shatter of glass stopped him mid-stride. The second
stekan
had crashed to the floor. When she spoke, her voice had changed, now sounding normal, and human, and vulnerable. “Please, Dmitri. I’ll try to stop speaking that way.”

He spun and found her arms wrapped tightly about her torso, her even white teeth worrying that lush bow of a lower lip.

Her chest rose and fell with a breath. Did she need to breathe?

“I don’t understand. I don’t remember anything.” Then came her single sob. “I’m scared.”

The words lacked the sultry tone that had flipped him on like a switch. Instead, they wreaked havoc on his heart. If there was one tiny shred of honor left inside him, she had found it and plucked it like an out-of-tune guitar string. And he knew he would do anything for her.

Anything.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered.

The
tchotchkes
on Elena’s shelves began to rattle.

Apparently, he’d said the wrong thing. “How can I help?”

The rattling stopped. “I need…” She curled her fingers into small porcelain fists, relaxed, curled again. “I need to find someone.” The fists remained clenched and her body trembled, but the house didn’t, as if she’d reined herself in.

“Tell me who.”

She opened her mouth, closed it, and frowned. “I don’t know.”

“Fine. Tell me your name.”

She screwed up her pretty face, twisting cheeks and brow and lips in an awful mixture of confusion and grief. She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

She spun away and the fabric of her wet nightgown pulled tight across her chest, revealing a hole rimmed with blood and blackened by…a bullet?

He froze. It had to be a bullet hole.

“Were you shot?” His heart paused, waiting for her to answer.

Her puzzled gaze flicked to the same spot.

“Show me the wound,” he demanded.

She wrapped her pearlescent fingers around the damp fabric and tugged it aside. Then she hesitated and worried her lip some more. Was she modest?

“I can see everything you’ve got under that wet slip. Don’t bother being shy.”

She set her jaw, nodded and slid the wide neck down over her shoulder. The wound appeared healed, a livid scar over her left breast.

He squeezed his eyes shut and imagined a crimson stain blooming across her skin in that spot. In his mind, it grew bigger and bigger, until she was covered in blood.

No!

He opened his eyes to see the ghost. Her wound wasn’t pulsing gushes of blood. It wasn’t front and center on a tanned and freckled chest, near to a vital heart. It would do no good to plug this bullet hole with his clumsy hand and apply pressure even as hot scarlet liquid seeped around his fingers. This ghost wasn’t that blood-covered woman, who’d worn only cotton panties and gasped, clutching at his wrists as he’d tried to staunch the bleeding bullet wound.

Dmitri heaved, what little he’d eaten fighting to come back up. The room spun and he stared at his bare feet, trying to get a grip, trying not to think about that other woman—

About the way she’d thrown herself between Dmitri and her pimping scumbag of a boyfriend. About the way the bullet had pierced her bare skin, at first only leaving a tiny black circle. About how a bubble of blood had gurgled at her mouth until she’d coughed it away.

Her man, sprawled behind her, had died instantly, killed by the same bullet. But she wouldn’t die—only stare at Dmitri with eyes growing glassier and glassier.

This pretty thing was not the girl he’d killed. But damn it—his heart couldn’t tell the difference. It thundered in his ears, racing toward something.

A second chance?

The possibility of redemption?

Could he save this one, this ghost of a girl, at least?

His eyes trailed up her delicate white neck, and desire overtook him, blending with his more honorable urges. When had a neck ever been so sexy? Ethereal white skin stretched over tendon and muscle, appearing temptingly soft, even though untouchable.

Before he thought better of it, he raised his hand, his knuckles burning to rub across that pearly surface.

She yelped, hurling herself backwards.

Surprised, he examined the hand he’d lifted to stroke her. From her side, it must have looked like a giant fist, rough from all the street fighting before he’d gotten serious in a real boxing ring. His index finger went to the bridge of his nose. Some women preferred a thug like him over a pretty boy. But not her, and that was only right. She was some other kind of woman than the ones he dated—if nightclubs, vodka, and half-numb screwing could be called dating.

She must have been a knockout—a real class act. With all that hair. Probably a shade lighter if it were dry, it would be a glossy and rich brown. And that curvy hourglass of a figure—his hands could easily wrap most of the way around her waist.

“Please, don’t look at me like that.” The sultry voice was back, dazing him with desire as if she’d just gripped the back of his head and pressed her tongue into his mouth for a kiss.

She whimpered. “Please…”

Poor thing. She wasn’t doing it on purpose. She needed his help, not his lust. And, in the unlikely event she liked him, she was still a goddamn ghost. Not like he could really touch her.

“I’m sorry. You just…do something to me. Your voice, your skin, your…” He waved his hand at the glorious body he would very much like to bare and touch, in the flesh.

“I know. I can’t seem to help it. I don’t mean to—”

“Don’t worry. I can tell you’re not the type—”

“Dmitri?” Somewhere down the hall, a door clicked closed and Elena’s heels tapped on the hardwood floor before she appeared. “Who are you talking too? Do you have one of those damnable headsets on? I swear they’re getting smaller by the day.”

The scantily dressed sex ghost hovered at his side, clearly visible in Elena’s line of sight. Which very likely meant she couldn’t see her at all.

Shit. It had to be true. He was completely bonkers.

His aunt drew near. “Is your call finished then? What was all that racket? I could have sworn I heard—” Her foot crunched on the shards of glass littering the floor in a wide blast pattern, and she let out an exasperated sigh. “Damn it, Dmitri Ivanovych Lisko. Both my teacups? Those were a gift from…”

He tuned her out, keeping his eyes glued to the ghost. Her supernaturally beautiful face flickered between curious and fearful as she tracked his aunt’s movements around the room. “She can’t see me.”

He shook his head.

“Or hear me.”

“Nope.” He scratched his head, trying to make sense of the whole damn thing.

“Dmitri?” Elena’s heels clicked out an arc behind him.

He pivoted on his heels. “Huh?”

“Are you on the phone or not? And what on earth is going on?” She reached into a closet and pulled out a broom.

“Nah. Not on the phone.” At a complete loss, he glanced back at the girl. “I’m just seeing ghosts. Or, ghost—one of them.”

Elena began to sweep the shards of glass into a neat pile. “Don’t be ridiculous. You said yourself that you’re hungry and fatigued. You need a meal and a good night’s rest, and then you’ll listen to reason about this thing you seem to think you must accomplish.”

Ouch. The euphemism cut coming from her. But there was no way he wasn’t killing Boris Makar.

Dmitri ignored her, searching out the ghost with hungry eyes. She’d flown over to his aunt, if fly was the right word. Perhaps float was better—there was no obvious method of propulsion. She seemed to be experimenting and tried to grab the broom from Elena’s grip, but her ghost hand passed right through it. She grimaced, then filled her sweet round cheeks with air and tried to blow Elena’s hair. Nothing. The ghost glanced back at him and held her palms up, shrugging.

Elena stopped sweeping and followed his line of sight until she was staring right at the ghost. A frown pressed down her brow, and she bustled over to him more quickly than her short legs should be able to carry her.

Standing on her tiptoes, she touched the back of her hand to his forehead. “No fever.”

“Nah. I feel fine since I ate.” Fine, except for the layer of sweat forming on his lower back and clamming up his palms. Fine except for the buzzing fear in his veins. He swallowed a lump in his throat. “If I’m hallucinating, it’s because I’ve gone completely nuts, not because I’m hungry.”

The ghost floated, intent on their conversation, the corners of her pretty mouth turned down.

Elena scowled, tapping her toes. “Maybe you just need a good night’s sleep. You said yourself—”

“No way. She’s too fucking real. I’ve gone off the deep end.”

“I am real,” she said, her voice at once plaintive and potent.

He shook away the desire flashing through him.

Elena peered into his face, and her mouth softened like she was considering possibilities other than him being a useless, wasted drunk. “Perhaps she is real. I happen to believe in ghosts.”

“What?” This had to be part of the hallucination.

“I do. How could I not? I study folklore. All the Slavic fairytales, even the literature, it is full of eerie legends about ghosts and witches that must have some roots in reality.”

Oh hell.

If she was going to give him a lecture, he really needed that smoke—bad. He stepped toward the chair where his coat hung and reached inside for the box. But he stopped himself before pulling them out. It would only give Elena one more thing to nag him about—no more drinking, no more smoking—blah, blah, blah.

He folded his hands together to keep them from fidgeting, or from grabbing a cigarette of their own accord. “Have you ever seen a ghost?”

“No. But many people have.”

“Right. And like them, I’m completely nuts—”

His stomach twisted with a sudden fear, one he’d never even thought of until now. “Elena, did my father drink himself crazy?”

She took firm hold of his elbow. “No. And don’t even think it. You’re not him.”

Her words melted away some of his dread—maybe this ghost was just a coincidence, and not one more stepping stone on the path to becoming his father.

“Now tell me. Is the ghost male or female?”

“What?” His spine went rigid, all too aware of his freaky reaction to the ghost. “Why does that matter?”

Elena skewered him with her glare.

He dragged a straight-backed chair away from the table and dropped into it, pressing his thumb and forefinger against his tired eyes. “Female.”

“Did she follow you from Kiev?”

“No way. I’d have been spooked outside, not enjoying a smoke.”

“You looked like hell though. Haunted.”

Well, he was, but not by this pretty thing.

The ghost’s eyebrows were pulled together in concentration, but she stuck out her tongue at his unintentional pun. It was a very cute tongue, and he mourned the idea that he would never taste it, lick it, feel it on his—

“So she appeared here. Interesting. I’ve never had the faintest glimmer of a haunting, although the house is—”

“Elena, she speaks Ukrainian. She understands your every word.”

“A Ukrainian ghost? Here in San Francisco?”

The ghost yelped again, like a stepped-on puppy. He wanted to cradle her to his chest, pet her, and murmur reassuring nonsense.

She swooped over to him. “Where exactly is this San Fran Sisco?” The whisper in his ear wasn’t carried on a warm breath, had no damp heat to it, but it still sent tingles down his spine.

“California. In the United States.”

“America?” The word easily counted as a third yelp.

“Dmitri, focus,” Elena snapped.

“You’re both talking to me at the same time. How can I focus?”

“Where did she appear?”

“Over the tea table, right after you left.”

“Where did she come from?” Elena scuttled toward a shelf of ornaments—mostly traditional Ukrainian keepsakes.