by Leslie North
Faced with the gorier details of Sergey's death, Dmitry decided it was time to change the subject. "That still doesn't explain how you heard about my lady friend," he pointed out.
"C'mon." Maxim chuckled as he explored along Dmitry's mantle, casually sipping his own vodka. He had already poured himself a second, and much larger, drink. "You know I'm exploiting my newfound powers to look in on you and Vlad."
"Yeah?" Dmitry cloned Maxim's drink for himself, swirling the clear liquid and clinking cubes of ice together. "Can't say I'm exactly happy to hear that."
"It's going to take all of us to solve this murder," Maxim agreed. "You, me… and maybe even Vlad, though I'd rather keep him out of it."
"I'm right there with you," Dmitry replied.
"And by the looks of things, it's going to take a few choice women, too. Who would have thought it?" Maxim raised his glass to his lips, his eyes brimming over with unvoiced questions. His gaze snapped suddenly to something over Dmitry's shoulder, and he spanned the length of the room to the coat closet. Dmitry turned to follow his brother's movements.
"Seriously? Is this Lily's stuff?" Maxim pushed the crack in the closet door wider and yanked a woman's trench coat off one hanger. Dmitry kept himself still, suppressing any flinch or angry remark he might have at seeing anything of his dead wife's treated so roughly. "Is this why you never invite me over? So I don't see what a sad piece of shit you really are?"
"I don't invite you over because you're loud and obnoxious and always wind up getting too drunk to drive yourself home on that deathtrap of yours," Dmitry retorted. "Also, there might have been a day a few months back where Vlad had me convinced you were our father's killer. So there's that."
"You don't invite Vlad, either," Maxim replied, completely missing the point that Dmitry was trying to make. He held the coat up to his chest and waved its empty sleeve at him; for a terrible second, Dmitry's heart clenched at the sight. "Or anyone, for that matter. The only place any of us can find you is at that damn bookstore of yours."
"Well, I'm always there," Dmitry said.
Maxim, possibly sensing the rise in his brother's long-dormant temper, hung Lily's old coat up the wrong way and returned it to the closet. "Maybe you should try inviting this hacker chick home with you."
"Her name's Harper," Dmitry supplied. "She had a connection with Dad. He helped her through school as amends to her family, so she feels personally invested in his murder investigation."
"Or so she says." Maxim crossed back to the bottle, topping Dmitry's drink before he refreshed his own. Seemed like Savannah had succeeded in teaching him some basic manners, at least. Maxim set the vodka bottle back down, and Dmitry noticed the Belvedere label for the third time that evening.
"Put a coaster under that," Dmitry said.
"Get fucked, Dmitry," his brother replied unfazed. "Seriously, it doesn't strike you as a little odd that Dad never mentioned this chick? Not to any of us?"
"I've told you everything I know at this point. If they had the relationship she claims—and I have no reason to suspect otherwise, believe me, I looked for one—then I wouldn't put it past Sergey to keep the connection a secret, especially if he knew he had an enemy in the fold. Putting a disadvantaged girl through college is bound to read as a weakness to those looking to exploit it."
"You might want to guard yourself against the same thing," Maxim pointed out. "At least my girlfriend can kick the ass of any Russian thug idiotic enough to come after her. You ready to keep an eye on this girl?"
"She's impulsive." Dmitry sighed. "Rest assured I'm going to try like hell to keep up with her, but I don't think I'll have much success."
"She sounds like Lily." Maxim's dark eyebrows pulled together, and for the first time that evening he sounded sober and serious. "You worried about it?"
Dmitry didn't reply right away. He plucked at a loose thread in the couch, weighing his words carefully, as he always did when the topic turned to Lily. "I'll keep her out of harm's way," he promised at last. "I'll be there to rescue her. Even if it's from herself."
Maybe it was a good thing Harper changed her appearance so often, Dmitry mused the next day as he approached her on the street. The woman could hardly require his full-time protection when she never looked like the same person twice.
At least, not superficially. Today she wore a straight black wig with blunt bangs and a knockoff pair of matte Wayfarers similar to his brother Vlad's—although Vlad had invested in the real thing long ago. Anyone who hadn't spent many long working hours in close proximity to the woman might mistake her for someone with no connection at all to Harper Allen.
But there was really no mistaking the tantalizing curves that made up her figure, the petite waist and full, buxom hips whose lurid curves invited an outsider's firm grip to touch them, to tame them. To Dmitry, there was no mistaking the sincere quality of her smile, the way her voluptuous red lips curved and her cheekbones pronounced themselves when she saw him. For the last week, he had seen her face every day when he came into work, but it still managed to leave him winded. He knew he was a fool to think there was anything more to the woman's open, wordless acknowledgement than a greeting between associates.
Was having Harper around really the inconvenience he had convinced Maxim it was? Yes, yes it is, Dmitry reassured himself as he stepped up to the sidewalk to join her. Even if she was gorgeous and greeted him with all the innocent eagerness of a loyal terrier—even if she was every hot-blooded man's waking dream of a challenge and conquest wrapped together in one tight little package—even if she was the most rapturous, intelligent, and funny soul he had crossed paths with in a long time, all of these things contributed to one massive distraction. Besides, Dmitry still wasn't fully certain if he trusted her.
"What did you find out?" He faced away from her, toward the brick storefront of the building behind them. It would be obvious to anyone watching that the two of them were engaged in conversation, but Dmitry hadn't gone the extra mile to arrange a disguise for himself. Somehow, he thought Harper's ensemble was overkill, but he wasn't going to take any chances until he knew for sure.
"That's the guy we're after." Harper nodded to their mark across the street. "Recognize him? Or do you need your glasses?"
"I'm farsighted. I probably see better than you do, considering you've been stuck squinting behind a computer for years." Dmitry turned to the side and narrowed his eyes slightly as he zeroed in on their target. The man across the street from them had a bad bleach-blond dye job and the washed-out, mean-looking face of someone who would associate with the mob. While Dmitry recognized the mold the man was cast from, he didn't recognize their target personally.
"I've been out for too long," he said finally. "I don't recognize him. He must be new blood. Are you saying that he's the murderer?"
"No," Harper murmured. She barely moved her lips as she spoke. Dmitry wondered if there really was a need to pitch their voices so low when there was no one else around to overhear. "But he definitely knows something. If not about Sergey, then about the diamond smuggling ring we're hunting that ties it all together somehow. I've been running tracers all week, and so far every trail of breadcrumbs I've found leads back to that guy. His name's Boris. He co-owns a nightclub down the street from Roza. Real up-and-coming. He's directly competing with your pal Vasily. How he and his partners are funding their operation remains steeped in the deepest of mysteries… or does it?"
"You think he might be trafficking the diamonds through his club," Dmitry said.
Harper nodded. "At least some of them. Not all. We already know that whoever is responsible has been running their contraband through the O'Connor Fine Arts Gallery, and that they might even be using your own store to get messages out."
Dmitry frowned deeply at Harper's last comment, but he knew it was no use arguing with her on this point. It was certainly harder to prove a negative than it was for her to insist his bookstore had been pulled into the mob's spider web without his knowledge or co
nsent. "So what now?" he asked finally. "I assume you didn't buy a new wig just to give me the rundown of your present suspicions. You got a plan to deal with this guy?"
Who am I kidding? he thought in the aftermath of his question. Of course you don't.
She surprised the hell out of him, then, when she came back with a winning smile and ready response. "You want a plan?" Harper tipped her sunglasses and raised her eyes to peer at him suggestively. "Oh, you better believe I've got a plan."
4
Harper
"This is a terrible plan," Dmitry stated. "God awful. Absolutely the worst. I mean, have you ever even made a plan before?"
The cranky bookseller crossed his arms and leaned against a tree as Harper paced in front of him, pulling a hair tie from around her wrist and tethering the raven tresses of her wig back. They had walked a half block to the small green lawn that passed for the neighborhood's public park, far away from any potential audience. She needed to get herself into the right headspace for what she was about to attempt, but Dmitry's disbelieving, if unintentional, insults were making it hard for her to focus.
"Because I really don't think this would constitute one. A plan," he continued. "You can't anticipate in any detail how this will go. It's risky, it's irresponsible—moreover, it's just not possible. A member of the mafia is going to let a woman like you put your hands down his pants for one reason and one reason only, Harper, and I think we both know what that is. You try anything else—whether you're a man or you're a woman—you're going to find a knife or gun drawn on you. You'll be lucky if you get away from him with your skull still intact, never mind successfully coming away with your intended target."
"What?" Harper secured her ponytail and flipped it over her shoulder. "You don't think I can do something as simple as flirt with a man and pick his pocket?"
Dmitry snorted, but she noticed his eyes tracking the movement of her hair and fixing on the exposed curve of her neck. "Let's just say I have my doubts about one of those things."
"You don't think I'm hot enough?" She couldn't help pushing him for a bigger, more specific compliment.
"I know you're hot enough," he said. Harper grinned to convey her agreement, even though his pointblank admission made her heart race faster. "But I seem to recall someone knocking every rare book off my shelf and spilling every coffee cup in her vicinity. You aren't a smooth operator in the real world, Harper."
"Ha!" she scoffed. "You wouldn't say that if you knew what I did in my spare time. Even Sergey wasn't aware of all my extracurricular activities."
Harper liked to think of herself as leading a triple life. She had her civilian identity, her hacker identity, and her extremely secret, incredibly sexy, third identity. The more Harper got to know Dmitry, the more she found herself wanting to expose him to her other hobby, but she wasn't sure he was ready for it just yet.
Dmitry gazed at her critically, and she could tell just by the quality of his look that she had made him curious. But he wouldn't take the bait, and Harper would resist the urge to dangle it. Her primary objective now was to convince him that her present idea was a good one.
"What makes you think this Boris guy even carries anything remotely resembling valuable information on him?" Dmitry asked. "Don't you think that's something he would have set aside in a safe somewhere?"
"If there's one thing I know about our current target, it's that he has an active online presence." Harper fastened her hands on her hips. "And if there's something that you and I both know, it's that whoever is pulling the strings of this entire operation is already aware that someone with my skillset is snooping around. My conclusion, then, is that our friend Boris probably has a physical way of accessing various terminals, downloading and dispensing information, and then unplugging before I can get ahold of any of it. Also, I saw him put a flash drive into his pocket when I was spying on him earlier."
"You could have just said that," Dmitry noted.
"I want that flash drive, Dmitry." Harper rolled her shoulders and craned her neck to the side until it gave an audible pop. She relished the release of tension as much as Dmitry's light wince at the sound. "So let's do a practice run. You and me. Right here, right now."
"How do you expect this to pan out?" he asked as she took a step toward him. He detached from the tree he leaned against and straightened, intelligent blue eyes watching her all the while. She thought she saw a spark there, an acceptance of her challenge, even if he still refused to go along with it out loud. "I already know you're going to try and pick my pocket, so you've already lost the element of surprise. There's really no offense you can run that I won't be ready for."
"We'll just see about that," Harper replied mildly. She fished around in her back pocket until she found her wallet and flipped it open. "Here." She pulled a small package from the inner lining and tossed it to him. Dmitry caught the condom single-handedly, and only appeared to realize too late what exactly she had thrown to him. Interestingly enough, she found that the Russian didn't blush when embarrassed—he tended to go the opposite route, his complexion paling as he lifted the condom for a closer inspection. Could it be that all the blood in that well-equipped body of his was flooding to other, more pressing areas of his anatomy at the thought of sex?
Whatever the case may be, Harper was satisfied that her little distraction tactic should throw him off his game by at least a half-step.
Dmitry's fair eyebrows rose as he studied the packaging. "Not big enough," he said finally. He slipped it down the front of his trouser pocket.
"It's big enough for my purposes," she replied. Boast all you want, Mr. Karev. I'm about to find out firsthand if you're lying.
"So I'm thinking I'll just mosey up to him," she purred, twitching her dark ponytail off to the side and working her shoulders in tandem with her hips as she moved closer to him. "Somewhere public. A mob-run restaurant, maybe, where he would expect to be recognized, but not approached so boldly." She drew herself up abreast of him until their chests were almost brushing. She glanced down between them, but couldn't detect whether or not Dmitry's chest rose or fell. Was he holding his breath as she closed in? "If I come onto him strong, it will take him by surprise, but he'll also be less likely to be on his guard if it all happens out in the open."
"When you refer it to 'all' happening…" Dmitry murmured as she placed her hands on his shoulders. "… just what are you thinking you'll be able to accomplish? What do you think a man in Boris' sensitive position will let you get away with?"
Harper smoothed her hands back behind his neck and let them dangle as she pretended to contemplate his question. "Oh, just about anything I want to, I imagine," she answered eventually, hooding her eyes and veiling her gaze with the lashes she knew drew him wild. "But you're right about him having an, er… sensitive position, although I doubt we're talking about the same thing." Harper shifted her body closer to Dmitry's. She could feel the warmth radiating off him. Now she could tell he was breathing, despite what appeared to be his best efforts to keep his exhalations regular and even. She had an idea of how difficult it was, if his heart was pounding anywhere near as fast as her own. No matter how her body reacted to being this near to Dmitry, she had to stay in control. She would take a lesson out of his own book and repress, repress, repress
"I hear the thugs in your circle—sorry, former circle—like women who are sexually aggressive," she mentioned. She leaned in closer to murmur her words directly into Dmitry's ear, secretly enjoying the spearmint smell of his aftershave. "It lets them know in advance that a little extra force exerted, a little dirty domination play in the bedroom, wouldn't be totally unwelcome. Barista, bookseller, Mafioso—I don't care what a man's day jobs is, it all boils down to signals. And any man from any walk of life is bound to read the signals I give off loud and clear."
"Sounds like you have your wires crossed, little hacker." The rough texture of Dmitry's cheek grazed her own as he turned into her. "This is a dangerous line you're willing to tread with a
man who could become volatile at any moment."
"Yeah?" She ran her lips along his jawline. "You sound as if you know from personal experience. Are you volatile, Dmitry Karev?"
"I'm the most level-headed of my brothers," Dmitry murmured. "But even I was young once. And stupid."
"You still are stupid." Harper massaged the word with her tongue like it was the highest compliment she could pay him. "Watch, and I'll show you."
They came together in an intoxicating rush, in such a startlingly immediate union that when she thought about it afterward, Harper couldn't be sure who initiated the kiss. She liked to think she was solely responsible for bringing Dmitry's walls crumbling down around him, but her better sense told her that it wouldn't have been nearly as good as it was if it wasn't one hundred percent mutual.
Her roving lips skated across his own, and suddenly they were cemented there firmly. She relished the sensation, wet and warm and wonderful. She could find a man to kiss her whenever she wanted, but just because that was the reality of her options didn't mean that Harper chose to kiss often. She loved it, admittedly, and she knew she was good at it—like any amorous girl, it was something she had practiced into a pillow all throughout high school until she could lay her lips on the real thing. There had been no turning back for her after that. God had gifted her these lips for a purpose, and she was in the business of re-gifting.
But it wasn't always enjoyable for her. There had to be a spark, and her connection with Dmitry was hot enough to start an electrical fire. She felt it in her belly, her core, an overwhelming heat that seemed to grow and expand with every second her mouth alighted on his. It had been there all along: the attraction. It's what elevated the moment into something more than mere flirtation.
