The Siren's Touch. Amber Belldene

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

      Chapter 3

      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 СКАЧАТЬ