Then he grabbed the wrist of the hand tangled between her legs, and collapsed his full, substantial weight onto her.
“Fuck, Katya. That was—”
She began to giggle under his weight.
“Am I squishing you?”
“I like it. It’s the opposite of being weightless.”
Still, he rolled off. “I must weigh twice as much as you.”
She missed him instantly, the way he grounded her, made her feel real. On his bed, she bent one knee, the way he had that night that she’d watched him. His eyes went to between her legs, as she knew they would. If there was one thing her father had taught her, it’s that hardly anyone could resist looking at a pussy. She dipped her finger down, to where his come had mixed with hers, and brought it to her mouth. He watched in fascination as she sucked it between her lips.
“You wanted a taste of me, but I wanted one of us together, so I can always remember what this was like.”
“You think you’ll remember things like that where you’re going next?”
“I’ll never forget that, even if I join the heavenly host to sing holy, holy, holy to God day and night, I will remember your finger in my ass and the taste of us together.”
He blushed, the brute, but also grinned with male pride, lying down to spoon up against her. “That is possibly the filthiest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say.”
“Why thank you, but don’t tell Dariya.”
“Chert. Not likely.”
She shivered, a chill creeping over her skin.
His eyes widened and he pulled the blankets up over them. “Is it time for more blood?”
The cold might very well be the start of her beginning to fade, but she didn’t want him shedding anymore blood on her behalf, when what he needed was a good night’s sleep before he went out to find Lisko in the morning.
“No,” she lied. “I’m fine. Will you just hold me?”
“Mmm-hmm.” He sounded half asleep already.
“Thanks.” She wriggled into the mattress, pressing against his back.
“Katya?”
“Hmm?” Sleep had begun to drag at her too.
“I’m sorry you didn’t find the man to treat you right when you were alive.”
Now that she’d been like that with him, the thought of another man turning her on curdled her stomach. How pathetic. Even if she were alive, Nikolai Zurkov was not the committing type.
Chapter 16
Numbing cold woke Nikolai, like he’d gone to sleep outside, naked, and the dew had just settled on his bare skin. But when he blinked and found himself in his own bed, he discovered Katya’s body was the source, like a block of ice in his arms. Drowsily, he pulled her tighter, drew the covers up to their chins. She shuddered like a hypothermia victim just pulled from the sea.
“Katya.” He jostled her.
She didn’t reply.
He shook her again. “Katya, wake up.”
He sat up and rubbed her arms in a panicked frenzy, the meaning of her temperature slowly penetrating the fog of sleep. She was fading, his blood running out. His bleary eyes found the red numbers of the alarm clock. Just after midnight. He’d shed so much blood just before dinner, and already she required more, like her ghost body grew hungrier and hungrier for life.
He slid out of bed, pulled on a pair of pajama pants, and tucked the blankets firmly around her.
His heart thundering in his ears, he tiptoed across the hall into the bathroom, locked the door, and dug out the straight razor. As he leaned back, the tile was as cold as Katya’s skin against his shoulder blades. He contemplated both his arms and decided to go into the left again, reopening the already-scabbing wound so it would bleed right over the X in the grout that he thought of as the crosshairs, the target, the exact place her body had given up her soul.
Barely a trickle of blood oozed onto the spot before clotting. He pinched the flesh and tried to squeeze out more ruby-colored liquid. Not even a drop beaded up.
He would have to try another spot. He pumped his hand, making his veins plump. At least his daily weights plus swimming routine kept several juicy ones close to the surface. He flicked at another one, up on the bottom curve of his left biceps, and nicked it. The blood poured. He turned his head away and imagined warmth flowing back into her where she lay cold and alone in his bed.
Here, with only the memories of her sexual edification to keep him company in the chilly bathroom, longings he could not deny reared their head defiantly. Could he keep her alive like this forever, keep her with him? The thought turned his brain weightless in his skull.
As a ghost, she would be safe from the fate of Tiger the fish, wouldn’t she? No one could use her to try to silence him. The litany of questions appeared across his vision, neatly spelled out in the font of an old-fashioned typewriter. Then they swirled and danced around the bathroom. Could she be killed again by someone who wanted to silence him? What if she required more and more blood? Where could he get it?
Someone hammered against Nikolai’s skull. A splitting pain. “Kolya? Are you in there?”
His lids scratched over the surface of his eyes as he opened them.
He was lying face down on the floor of the bathroom, drooling onto the mat, his elbow deep in a pool of congealed blood.
“I need to pee,” Dariya whined.
“Okay. Okay. Give me a second.” He defied his lethargic brain and sprang into action, sopping up the blood with a dark, old washcloth under the sink that he used as a rag. A squirt of cleaning solution and another cleaning rag took care of the pink streaks on the tile. He shoved all the evidence into the very back of the vanity, though there was nothing he could do about the lemony smell. Then he slapped on two fresh, new bandages.
His throat throbbed like he’d just trekked across Afghanistan without a canteen. How much blood had he shed?
“Kolya!”
“Hold on. Almost done.” He scooped water into his mouth and slurped it down, one, two, three handfuls. Then he remembered he’d planned for this scenario and opened the medicine cabinet. The bottle of iron pills sat center stage on the bottom shelf. The instructions said to take with orange juice—hopefully Orangina counted. It was the only thing remotely close in the fridge. He popped two of the monstrous things with another slurp of water. Fuck, they grated down his esophagus, like trying to swallow two nine-volt batteries whole.
He cracked the door.
“Thank God.” His niece bounced on one foot, then the other, like a toddler doing an urgent little potty dance. She slid past him, thankfully too desperate to interrogate him or eye his bandages.
He hustled to the kitchen and guzzled down a whole bottle of the sweet orange soda, it’s carbonation like sandpaper on his throat and stinging up into his sinuses. With the burn, he recalled the questions he’d contemplated as he passed out. Could he keep Katya alive and at his side with his blood? It would seem not, if he didn’t want to pass out in a pool of the stuff or bleed out that way, especially if her appetite for blood really was growing.
Back in the bed, she was so warm, nestled deeply in the center of the bed. He climbed in next to her, spooned himself around her back side, and let her pour heat back into him.
As soon as his goose bumps melted away, his cock grew hard nestled between the cheeks of her ass. Such a pretty ass, and she’d gone wild with his finger inside her there. That had been a stroke of divine inspiration, an impetuous attempt to overwhelm her body so her mind stopped thinking about whatever memories or fears made her so reticent.
And it had worked. She’d given herself over to him so completely, like no other lover ever had, not even Alisa, who’d loved to suck dick and to fuck in every room of their university apartment like a twenty-year-old’s dream wife.
In all these years since their break-up, he’d held on to the memories of the way they used to screw like the bed they’d shared was a paradise lost. But one night and one dream of sex with Ka
tya, one breakfast of blini and dinner of chicken soup, and the Eden of his memory seemed tainted.
Alisa had fucked with abandon, always chasing her climax and willing to help him get her there in whatever way worked best. But it turned out that wasn’t the same thing as love, or even simple respect. When Nik had thrown himself into the doping story, she’d thrown herself into their next-door neighbor’s bed, a detail she was quick to fling in his face when he’d begun to pack his bags after the swimmer had died and the scandal he’d sat on had broken anyway. It hadn’t hurt much compared to the betrayal of her asking him to bury the story—maybe he’d always known she used his body like a tool.
A stark contrast with tonight’s slow burn of flirtation through dinner. With every touch and glance, Katya had revealed she wanted to be with him, to be close, to give and take, not just to get off. She’d been vulnerable and risked trusting him in spite of God knew what issues she had—her parents, the Belovs, and finding out her boyfriend was a liar. Sex with her had been a thousand times more intimate than with the woman he’d thought he’d loved.
Nothing could change him into the marrying type, though. If he’d fallen for her when she was alive, it would have probably done a number on both of them. She deserved to be adored, and he couldn’t offer that on any kind of permanent basis. Sooner or later, he was leaving the culture desk.
Like an answer to his internal rhetoric, the toilet flushed in the hall, and seconds later, the bathroom door shut. Dariya headed back to her room.
He wasn’t going to get any rest tonight holding a woman he couldn’t have. Surely, if he could, he wouldn’t want to for long. Ultimately, no woman was as thrilling as his never-ending quest for the truth.
He padded over to his desk and grabbed his laptop and Dariya’s notes on Femme Fatale before bringing them back to the bed to get some work done. Hopefully, the screen’s bluish light wouldn’t bother his sweet ghost too much, and then he could enjoy her presence while he had the chance.
When he slid back into bed, his floor-chilled feet brushed her legs, and she bolted upright, heart pounding.
“What is it?”
A frown creased her brow, and she rubbed her eyes. “Nikolai?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Are you okay?”
She put her hand to her chest and it rose and fell fast.
“What happened?”
“Nightmare.”
“Was it the night you were shot?”
“No, it wasn’t my nightmare.” She frowned and then squeezed her eyes shut, as if trying to shake off some haze. “The mara found Lisko and we made certain he had a very bad night.”
Nikolai watched her with sickening fascination. This woman who’d slipped into his dreams and used his body for sex had now slipped into her murderer’s and tormented him. “What did you do to him in the dream?”
“Oh, I don’t usually have to do anything. With the crushing spiritual weight of a mara on your chest, the mind manufactures its own fears. All I have to do is hold on when they start thrashing and try to buck me off. Then I wait for the moment to show them my death and Fedir’s, the blood, the bullet holes, and then I ask for help.”
Chert. A nightmare like that could have a hardened hit man wetting his bed.
“What fears did his subconscious generate? Anything we can use?”
She drew her knees up and curled over them, her brow curving into a troubled bow.
“It was mostly things I’ve seen before.”
“Before?” Nik closed the computer and set it on the nightstand.
“Didn’t I tell you? I found his dream last night too.” After a gaping yawn, she continued. “He was in a boxing ring fighting a giant. Then a monster rained down blows from three time’s Lisko’s height. And then he was outside Lukyanivska prison on a snowy day—everything seemed big, so maybe a childhood memory. And—you know that weird way you just know things in dreams?”
Nik nodded.
“It all had to do with his dad. Poor guy. Seems like his father was…” She huffed, a wry sound. “Up there with Mikaiel maybe. Nobel Prize potential, if you know what I mean.”
“Poor guy? Fuck, Katya. He killed you and your beloved Fedir.”
“Yeah. I know. But—well, it’s hard to stay objective about someone when you’re dreaming their fears.”
Katya stared at her hands interlocked around her knees, her lively and lovely features moving subtly with whatever thoughts played through her mind. Was she truly experiencing compassion for her murderer, a man attempting to charm and bribe his way to corporate freedom? She was like a saint, or the fucking Dalai Lama. In theory, he could admire that impulse, but it wouldn’t change Ukraine.
“There were also some hospital memories.” She leaned back and stretched her arms over her head, reminding him of a kitten and tempting him to rub her belly. “But you know how dreams are, half the time he was in the patient’s bed, the other half it was an old guy in the bed. Not the most grizzly stuff I’ve seen in people’s nightmares.”
Morbid images of her lifeless body in his bathroom came into Nik’s mind, and with that same dream logic she’d just described, they blurred with memories of Sofiya’s last weeks, her big, strong body wasting away. All of it Lisko’s fault.
“You okay?” She’d lifted her upper body, supporting her weight with her elbows.
“Fine. Did you see anything else?”
“He started remembering me on his own, things I didn’t remember. Him falling to his knees, trying to stanch the flow of my blood, him begging me not to die… I’d forgotten all that while I wept for Fedir.”
“So what? You let the dream unfold, let his regret do its work?”
She laughed, a bitter, metallic sound like the sharp edge of her siren range. “The mara would never let me do that. She took hold of his memory of me, occupied it, spoke right out of my dead body to warn that I was coming for him, that he would pay for what he’d done.” Her voice had turned haunting, or was it haunted?
“Chert. I’m glad I got the sexy version of your mara powers.”
“It probably won’t help anything.” She shrugged, her voice returning to normal. “When I haunted Mr. Kulish’s dreams, he said, ‘Get behind me, Satan,’ and started reciting a prayer. And for weeks he drank a shot of vodka right before he brushed his teeth at bedtime.”
“But he wasn’t guilty. Imagine how Lisko feels. It’s got to unsettle him, and anything to knock him off his game might help.”
“All right. I’ll keep trying to scare him shitless.” She rubbed her eyes and then squeezed them tight. “Speaking of which, can we stop talking so I can just enjoy the sensation of being alive for a while?”
Her face relaxed into a restful expression and her breaths evened out. Had she just fallen back asleep?
Her hand came up to her breast and she began to roll her nipple between her thumb and forefinger.
Chert. What a sight. He groaned.
She cracked an eyelid. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
He pointed at her hand on her breast, and she colored. “Oh, sorry. Nervous habit. That or biting my thumbnail.”
“Don’t stop on my account.”
She rolled her eyes, tossed back the blankets, and opened her arms. “Come here, you look cold.”
He was. Goose bumps had tightened the skin all over his body.
He went to her, unable to remember the last time a woman had welcomed him into a bed to warm him, not just to fuck him. She sighed, fitted herself against him. He’d unlocked her body, and her newfound comfort with him was an honor.
“Brrr. Your toes are cold. Here.” She wrapped her own small feet around his, warming him. “You have sexy feet,” she said in a breathy, sleepy murmur, throwing the crook of her arm over her brow. “I didn’t know a man could have sexy feet until I saw yours.”
He bent to kiss the top of her platinum-blond head and reached for the breast she’d been fondling. “Here, le
t me help you with those nerves.”
“Why, thank you.” She arched into his palm and rose up to kiss him.
Chapter 17
Katya dozed again after they made love and woke to find Nikolai sitting up, shirtless, the blankets pulled up to his waist, a laptop sitting on the spot for which it was named. Its bluish light cast his burly body in relief, but the color was unflattering, deathly, even.
She reached up to turn on the bedside lamp. “Who did you call last night after Dariya broke the TV?”
He tilted his head as if unable to make sense of the question and then reached over to pat her knee. “Good morning to you too.”
“Who?” She covered his hand with hers.
“I texted my editor to ask if he’d heard anything about the trial.”
“And?”
“Rumor mill puts the odds on dismissal.” He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” She wasn’t sorry, though. Not really, since the mara demanded an altogether more visceral form of justice. But the news alleviated her conscience a little over the secret she’d kept from Nikolai. Last night, in Lisko’s dream, he’d begged her to forgive him. So she’d told her enemy to come to the apartment building and find her.
Nikolai traced the pad of his thumb over her brow. “What are you thinking about?”
“That thing you promised to tell me.” She did really want to know, which made the lie easier to say and more believable to the ear.
He winced almost imperceptibly. “You still want to know what happened in journalism school?”
“Don’t make me use my mara voice on you,” she chided.
“Is that an option?” He winked, bringing his hand up higher on her thigh. “Because I think I might like it better.”
She stilled his hand, pressing it hard to her leg, letting him know she sensed the avoidance beneath his lighthearted teasing. “Is it such a terrible story?”
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