Ania led the way back down the stairs, looking very comfortable in his shirt, as if she were wearing an elegant dress. He wondered if she wore panties under it. As they moved down the stairs, he let his hand slide down the curve of her back to the tail of the shirt, bunching it in his fist. His knuckles brushed bare skin. Heat spiraled down his spine.
“I love your ass, Ania.” He wanted her to be distracted. He needed her to be. The house had become a memorial, a shrine to the dead. He wanted Ania to stay among the living. Her family were all gone and only ghosts remained behind.
He opened his hand to palm her left cheek as she walked, feeling the muscles bunch and give. His thumb slid over her soft, firm skin.
She glanced at him over her shoulder, and her eyes held a dark lust. “You like everything about my body.”
“That’s true. I wouldn’t mind sitting you on the landing and taking time out to eat you. I’m feeling a little like the Big Bad Wolf.”
Her laughter rewarded him, spilling over so the notes felt like gold to him. A little shiver went down her spine and she pushed back into his hand. “You’re always feeling like the Big Bad Wolf. Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes and act innocent.”
“That’s bad,” he said. “Really bad.”
She went down the long hall, past her father’s room, to a door that she unlocked with the keys she’d taken from her room. Once open, she stepped back to allow him through first. The room was immaculate, as if it had just been deep-cleaned. If Annalise had done this, she’d done it as a labor of love. No one kept empty rooms so pristine.
He looked around. There was very little furniture and nothing personal whatsoever. “Did Annalise find anything at all that he specifically left for your father or you?”
She started to shake her head and then frowned. “He had a journal and there were entries for my father. The journal should be in my father’s desk in the den.”
“Did you read it?”
“My father showed me a few entries, just because they were loving and sweet. Mostly about my grandmother and me. The rest, he kept to himself. But, Mitya, if there was anything about a package my grandfather had failed to deliver to the Anwar family, my father would have told me when I asked.”
“Maybe, Ania. And maybe, like your grandfather, he wanted to keep you safe.”
“I don’t think I’m very safe, Mitya. If that was his purpose in not telling me, he didn’t do a very good job of it.”
She didn’t sound bitter, although her words could have been taken that way. She sounded sad. He slung his arm around her neck and walked her out of her grandparents’ apartment. It was cold and felt empty. Ania needed to feel warm and carefree. He had to give that to her. More than anything, Mitya wanted to make her happy.
As she led the way to the den, her body slid subtly along his. He felt every curve. Deep inside, his leopard raked him, every bit as aware of the pheromones she was throwing off as he was. Ania seemed to slide against every wall down the long hallway, so that her alluring fragrance filled the entire area, from floor to ceiling, so he breathed her in with every step he took.
Mitya felt a little as if he was going out of his mind. In his ears there was a roaring thunder. He felt edgy. Tense. There was a part of him that was there, taking care of business. Most of him was all about desire. Lust. Hunger. That kind of hunger cut through his soul, leaving him jagged and feeling like a jackhammer was ripping through his head.
It took tremendous discipline to stay on task. To keep his mind on the reason he was there in that house. She moved out from under his shoulder, which should have given him some relief, but then he was looking at her body as she moved so seductively through the den to the other side of the room.
Her father’s desk was an old-fashioned rolltop, which surprised him. He would have thought Antosha would have had a much more modern glass one. Ania ran her hand over the wood and then pulled out another key. She unlocked the top drawer, reached in and hit something he couldn’t see. Immediately a little hidden drawer sprang open from one of the two curved wooden pieces that formed the legs.
Mitya was more interested in the way she bent down to open the drawer, giving him flashes of her bottom. He really wanted to take a bite out of her. Instead, he waited while she crouched down, her legs slightly apart, just enough that he could see the honey glistening on the tight curls covering her mound.