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  How rude.

  She raised her hands before her eyes—transparent.

  She was a ghost. Had to be. She must have died in the river. But at that conclusion, her thoughts came to a jarring halt. No other memories volunteered themselves. Who was she, and what had happened?

  A low voice rumbled. “Fuck.”

  She squeaked at the crude word. The frightening man pointing a gun at her elicited another squeak. She had to get away, and with the mere thought, her ghostly body swished toward the wide, bright window, opening onto a street like no place she’d ever seen—strangely colored houses, bizarre automobiles in every shade imaginable, and a huge swath of sea. Was she in Odessa? She’d never been there before.

  Her breath came fast, but now she could tell they weren’t really breaths, only the habit of inhaling. No air came in, and she didn’t need it. Panic, which used to grip her chest and turn her heart into a sewing machine at full speed, now only made her mind race and her thoughts tangle.

  “Breathe, girl, be calm.” The big man lowered his weapon. His voice was gravel crunching under tires on a country road. The same habit of breathing forced the empty breaths to come slower. Her ghost chest rose and fell, but she couldn’t feel it, only see. Could see her breasts, fully outlined by her wet nightgown—a sheer bit of fabric that could never dry.

  Oh, sweet Jesus, she would be indecently clad for eternity.

  She squeaked again.

  The man’s frosty blue eyes roamed over her, lingering on her breasts, her belly, then flicking to the spot between her legs. An unfamiliar feeling flitted through her, the remembered sensation of butterflies in her tummy, although she no longer had a tummy. She covered her private parts with one outspread palm and hid her breasts with her arm. Although it was no use—her limbs were as sheer as her nightgown.

  Still, he must have taken her meaning, because he returned his hard gaze to her face. The man was big—no, hulking—his eyes almost level with hers, though she floated above the ground. His head was bare and evenly covered with black stubble. A scar marred one thick eyebrow, as if the flesh there had been split wide open and not properly tended. His nose would have been a fine, noble thing, were it not very slightly askew and too large across the bridge. The scarring would be from one bad break, or several minor ones.

  He tucked his weapon into his waistband and crossed his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes. “Are you real?”

  The mouth that formed his words was exquisite—soft, full lips hinted at a hidden kindness. Once he voiced the question, he pressed them into oblivion, leaving no trace of the sensitivity they’d suggested.

  She tried to twine a lock of hair around her finger but couldn’t grab hold of one. Combing her fingers through the mass, she pulled the curls forward. The brown waves held fast between her fingers, but they had no weight, no texture. “I don’t know.”

  “How did you come to be in the teapot?” He flung his hand out, gesturing at the crockery.

  Inside her mind, a shutter closed and then opened on a new scene. Her teapot, wrapped carefully in newspaper, and bundled into a blanket along with the family bible and photos. Anya had packed the matching teacups with her, in the little knapsack she’d carried to school. Where was Anya? Where were her parents?

  Logical, orderly thoughts eluded her. Her ghost brain worked, but not the way it had before. Now, her mind only flashed images and recalled sensations—

  Cold ground under her bare feet—

  A bang, then her shoulder ripped open, exploding in pain.

  Her ethereal fingers traced to the spot of remembered pain but felt nothing. There, a perfectly round hole pierced her nightgown, the circle rimmed with rusty-looking blood. Beneath it, her skin puckered with the scar of a bullet wound.

  And then, like a monstrous ocean wave, the frigid river swallowed her up, black water under a blacker night sky. She thrashed, trying to stay afloat, but the cold sapped her strength and vital warmth poured out of her shoulder.

  She was dead, drowned in the river. Someone had shot her and chased her into the river to die.

  In this mysterious room, looking out over the sea, her ghost body came alive. Hot fury began at her toes, boiling up her legs and torso and finally reaching her throat, where it tore out of her with an anguished yell. She would find whoever had done this to her and rip him apart with her teeth and fingernails. No, first she would hold his head under icy water, depriving him of every last breath but one, only to resuscitate him and do it again. And again. When she tired of it, she would begin the ripping apart.

  She gasped, frightened by the fierce need, an unfamiliar and wholly new emotion. She’d never wanted to hurt someone, other than to yank Anya’s hair or smack her for being sassy. But—oh, how right this violence was, resonating in her diaphanous ghost body and tingling through the fabric of her soul. She felt…felt more… No, she simply felt, and it was good. The violent fantasy had brought her to life—or some ghostly echo of it—and explained her very existence. She had one purpose and one purpose alone.

  Vengeance.

  The desire shook her, and even without a body, the force was immense, all-consuming. It rattled her thoughts, her feelings, and then the dishes on the table began to shake, the lid to the teapot tapping a rapid rhythm on the oak table.

  Oh God, was she doing that?

  “What the hell? Are you doing that?” He pointed his gun at her again.

  She swished to a door with a frosted glass window. It appeared to lead onto the street. She reached for the handle, but it passed through her insubstantial fingers, sending a cold shudder reverberating through her. That horrid sensation was enough to deter her from attempting another pass through the barrier. She was trapped in a room with this brute, trapped in this un-body, when she had to go find whoever was responsible. Panic shook her.

  “Cut it out,” he shouted.

  Across the room, a door swung, slamming into its frame, further closing off the sunny space. Then an old-fashioned glass and silver stekan bounced to the edge of the table and crashed to the floor, breaking into shards. She couldn’t control the power coursing through her and cried out, flying into a dark corner occupied by a small tree in a pot. Crouching beneath its glossy green leaves, which swayed from the waves of energy radiating from her, the full force of the truth hit her—she was dead, a ghost, without a body. And her family was…

  Still, no memories came. She drew her knees up to her chin and shook her head. The phantom pressure of tears built behind her eyes, although she had no tears, and really, no body at all. She whimpered and began to cry, her own bleating not-quite sobs reminding her of a frightened child.

  Gun dangling at his side, the giant prowled toward her, pinning her in the corner. He frowned, black eyebrows drawing together into a fierce slant. Then he dropped to a knee in an awkwardly humble gesture.

  “Easy, girl.” He laid the gun on the floor in front of him.

  “You can hear me?”

  Rubbing one hand over his bald head, he replied, “Yeah.”

  “And see me?”

  He grunted the answer to her obvious question, and his gaze roved over her knees—and lower. Oh God, her sheer, wet nightgown was only so long. She was probably exposing everything to him. She crossed her heels, pressing her calves into her hamstrings, and reached around her thighs to gather her wispy garment, so that at least a thin layer of cloth covered her.

  His eyes were the cornflower blue of the dress worn by the virgin God-bearer Mary in the holy icons. Although most had been destroyed by the Communist Party, some had survived, hidden in churches, or stowed away in people’s homes at great risk. She loved the vibrant paintings and their air of holy mystery.

  Surely the good Virgin Mary, mother of God, had never wanted vengeance for the horrible things done to her family.

  The big man’s gaze wrapped around her and the memory disappeared, taking with it any clue of who she was. His focus skimmed over her t
high and hip, across her bare arm and back to her face, where his blue eyes widened. Again, the imaginary butterflies fluttered in her memory of a stomach. His lovely mouth fell open too, and a full, pink tongue moistened his lower lip. He rubbed his wreck of a nose and then smoothed his palms down over his thick thighs.

  A power coalesced inside her. Like her fury, it began to fill her from her toes as if, from over her head, a pitcher poured liquid strength into her. A warm buzz tingled and soothed her, turning her furious vibrations into pure power. When the sensation reached her head, she understood, and it shocked her.

  She elongated, reaching her bare arms overhead, stretching her body long, and revealing all its lines to him under the slip of a nightdress.

  There—his tongue reappeared against his lower lip. She smoothed the shift over her waist and hips, highlighting her silhouette. He let out a slow breath.

  She focused on the strange, harsh-looking man who appeared to be as confused as she felt.

  “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.”

  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 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 w
as 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.”