“I saw him, over by the bar,” Elizabeth repeated. “I noticed him because the blond woman seemed very angry with him. And I remember because I have an eidetic memory.”
“Is it fatal?”
“No, it’s not a disease or condition. Oh.” Flushing a little, Elizabeth hunched her shoulders. “You were joking. It’s commonly called a photographic memory, but that’s not accurate, as it’s more than visual.”
“Whatever. Get ready.”
But Elizabeth was more interested in Julie—the eye, which included a tipped head, slow, secretive smile and a shift of the eyes from under the lashes. This was followed by a quick shake and toss of the head that lifted Julie’s hair and had it drifting down again.
Was it innate? Was it learned behavior? Some combination of both? In any case, Elizabeth thought she could emulate it, though she no longer had hair to toss.
“Message received. Oh, he’s got such an adorable smile. Oh my God, he’s coming over. He’s like actually coming over.”
“But you wanted him to. That’s why you … sent the message.”
“Yeah, but—I bet he’s at least twenty-four. I bet. Follow my lead.”
“Excuse me?”
Elizabeth looked up as Julie did but didn’t risk the smile. She’d need to practice first.
“I wonder if you can help me with something.”
Julie executed a modified hair toss. “Maybe.”
“I’m worried my memory is failing because I never forget a beautiful woman, but I can’t recall either of you. Tell me you haven’t been here before.”
“First time.”
“Ah, that explains it.”
“I guess you’re here a lot.”
“Every night. It’s my club—that is,” he said with a dazzling smile, “I have an interest in it.”
“You’re one of the Volkovs?” Elizabeth spoke without thinking, then felt the heat rise as he turned sizzling blue eyes on her.
“Alex Gurevich. A cousin.”
“Julie Masters.” Julie offered a hand, which Alex took, kissed stylishly on the knuckles. “And my friend Liz.”
“Welcome to Warehouse 12. You’re enjoying yourselves?”
“The music’s great.”
When the waitress came with the drinks, Alex plucked the tab off the tray. “Beautiful women who come to my club for the first time aren’t allowed to buy their own drinks.”
Under the table, Julie nudged Elizabeth’s foot while she beamed at Alex. “Then you’ll have to join us.”
“I’d love to.” He murmured something to the waitress. “Are you visiting Chicago?”
“Born and bred,” Julie told him, taking a long swallow of her drink. “Both of us. We’re home for the summer. We’re at Harvard.”
“Harvard?” His head cocked; his eyes dazzled. “Beautiful and smart. I’m half in love already. If you can dance, I’m lost.”
Julie took another drink. “You’re going to need a map.”
He laughed, held out his hands. Julie took one, rose.
“Come on, Liz. Let’s show him how a couple of Harvard girls get down.”
“Oh, but he wants to dance with you.”
“Both.” Alex kept his extended hand out. “Which makes me the luckiest man in the room.”
She started to decline, but Julie gave her another version of the eye behind Alex’s back, which involved a lot of rolling, eyebrow wiggling, grimacing. So she took his hand.
He wasn’t actually asking her to dance, but Elizabeth gave him credit for manners when he could have left her sitting alone at the table. She did her best to join in without getting in the way. It didn’t matter, she loved dancing. She loved the music. She loved the noise rising around her, the movements, the smells.
When she smiled it wasn’t practiced, just a natural curve of her lips. Alex sent her a wink and a grin as he laid his hands on Julie’s hips.
Then he lifted his chin in a signal to someone behind her.
Even as she turned to look, someone took her hand, gave her a quick spin that nearly toppled her on her heels.
“As always, my cousin is greedy. He takes two while I have none.” Russia flowed exotically through the voice. “Unless you take pity and dance with me.”
“I—”
“Don’t say no, pretty lady.” He drew her close for a sway. “Just a dance.”
She could only stare up at him. He was tall, his body hard and firm against her. Where Alex was bright, he was dark—the long wave of his hair, eyes that snapped nearly black against tawny skin. As he smiled at her, dimples shimmered in his cheeks. Her heart rolled over in her chest and trembled.
“I like your dress,” he said.
“Thank you. It’s new.”
His smile widened. “And my favorite color. I’m Ilya.”
“I’m … Liz. I’m Liz. Um. Priyatno poznakomit’sya.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too. You speak Russian.”
“Yes. Well, a little. Um.”
“A beautiful girl wearing my favorite color who speaks Russian. It’s my lucky night.”
No, Liz thought, as, still holding her close, he lifted her hand to his lips. Oh, no. It was her lucky night.
It was the best night of her life.
3
THEY MOVED TO A BOOTH. IT ALL HAPPENED SO SMOOTHLY, so seamlessly, it seemed like magic. As magical as the pretty pink drink that appeared in front of her.
She was Cinderella at the ball, and midnight was a lifetime away.
When they sat he stayed close, kept his eyes on her face, his body angled toward hers as if the crowds and the music didn’t exist. He touched her as he spoke, and every brush of his fingers over the back of her hand, her arm or shoulder was a terrible thrill.
“So, what is it you study at Harvard?”
“I’m in medical school.” It wouldn’t be true, she promised herself, but it was true enough now.
“A doctor. This takes many years, yes? What kind of doctor will you be?”
“My mother wants me to follow her into neurosurgery.”
“This is a brain surgeon? This is big, important doctor who cuts into brains.” He skimmed a fingertip down her temple. “You must be very smart for this.”
“I am. Very smart.”
He laughed as if she’d said something charming. “It’s good to know yourself. You say this is what your mother wants. Is it what you want?”
She took a sip of her drink, and thought he was very smart, too—or at least astute. “No, not really.”
“Then what kind of doctor do you want to be?”
“I don’t want to be a doctor at all.”
“No? What, then?”
“I want to work in cyber crimes for the FBI.”
“FBI?” His dark eyes widened.
“Yes. I want to investigate high-tech crimes, computer fraud—terrorism, sexual exploitation. It’s an important field that changes every day as technology advances. The more people use and depend on computers and electronics, the more the criminal element will exploit that dependence. Thieves, scam artists, pedophiles, even terrorists.”
“This is your passion.”
“I … I guess.”
“Then you must follow. We must always follow our passions, yes?” When his hand brushed over her knee, a slow, liquid warmth spread in her belly.
“I never have.” Was this passion? she wondered. This slow, liquid warmth? “But I want to start.”
“You must respect your mother, but she must also respect you. A woman grown. And a mother wants her child to be happy.”
“She doesn’t want me to waste my intellect.”
“But the intellect is yours.”
“I’m starting to believe that. Are you in college?”
“I am finished with this. Now I work in the family business. This makes me happy.” He signaled the waitress for another round before Elizabeth realized her glass was nearly empty.
“Because it’s your passion.”
“This is so. I follow my passions—like this.”
He was going to kiss her. She might not have been kissed before, but she’d imagined it often enough. She discovered imagination wasn’t her strong suit.
She knew kissing imparted biological information through pheromones, that the act stimulated all the nerve endings packed in the lips, in the tongue. It triggered a chemical reaction—a pleasurable one that explained why, with few exceptions, kissing was part of human culture.
But to be kissed, she realized, was an entirely different matter than theorizing about it.
His lips were soft and smooth, and rubbed gently over hers, with the pressure slowly, gradually increasing as his hand slid up from her hip to her rib cage. Her heart tripped above the span of his hand as his tongue slipped through her lips, lazily glided over hers.
Her breath caught, then released with an involuntary sound, almost of pain—and the world revolved.
“Sweet,” he murmured, and the vibration of the words against her lips, the warmth of his breath inside her mouth, triggered a shiver down her spine.
“Very sweet.” His teeth grazed over her bottom lip as he eased back, studied her. “I like you.”
“I like you, too. I liked kissing you.”
“Then we must do it again, while we dance.” He brought her to her feet, brushed his lips to hers again. “You aren’t—the word, the word … jaded. This is the word. Not like so many women who come in to dance and drink and flirt with men.”
“I don’t have a lot of experience with any of that.”
Those black eyes sparkled in the pulsing lights. “Then the other men aren’t so lucky as me.”
Elizabeth glanced back toward Julie as Ilya drew her to the dance floor and saw that her friend was also being kissed. Not gently, not slowly, but Julie seemed to like it—in fact, was fully participating, so—
Then Ilya drew her into his arms, swaying with her unlike all the others who rushed and shook and spun. Just swaying while his mouth came to hers again.
She stopped thinking about chemical reactions and nerve endings. Instead, she did her best to participate fully. Instinct brought her arms up to lock around his neck. When she felt the change in him, the hardening pressing against her, she knew it was a normal, even involuntary, physical reaction.
But she knew the wonder of it all the same. She’d caused the reaction. He wanted her, when no one ever had.
“What you do to me,” he whispered in her ear. “Your taste, your scent.”
“It’s pheromones.”
He looked down at her, brow knitted. “Is what?”
“Nothing.” She pressed her face to his shoulder.
She knew the alcohol impaired her judgment, but she didn’t care. Even knowing the reason she didn’t care was because of the impairment, she lifted her face again. This time she initiated the kiss.
“We should sit,” he said after a long moment. “You make my knees weak.”
He held her hand as they walked back to the table. Julie, eyes overbright, face flushed, popped to her feet. She teetered a minute, laughed, grabbed her purse.
“We’ll be right back. Come on, Liz.”
“Where?”
“Where else? The ladies’.”
“Oh. Excuse me.”
Julie hooked arms with her as much for balance as solidarity. “Oh my God. Can you believe it? We like got the hottest guys in the club. Jesus, they’re so sexy. And yours has that accent. I wish mine had the accent, but he kisses so much better than Darryl. He practically owns the club, you know, and like has this house on the lake. We’re all going to get out of here and go there.”
“To his house? Do you think we should?”
“Oh, we should.” Julie shoved open the bathroom door, took a look at the line for the stalls. “Typical, and I really have to pee! I’ve got such a buzz! How’s your guy—does he kiss good? What’s his name again?”
“Ilya. Yes, he’s very good. I like him, very much, but I’m not sure we should go with them to Alex’s house.”
“Oh, loosen up, Liz. You can’t let me down now. I’m totally going to do it with Alex, and I can’t go over there with him alone—not on the first date. You don’t have to do it with Ilya if you’re all virginal.”
“Sex is a natural and necessary act, not only for procreation but, certainly in humans, for pleasure and the release of stress.”
“Get you.” Julie elbowed her. “So you don’t like think I’m a slut for doing it with Alex?”
“It’s an unfortunate by-product of a patriarchal society that women are deemed sluttish or cheap for engaging in sex for pleasure while men are considered vital. Virginity shouldn’t be a prize to be won, or withheld. The hymen has no rewarding properties, grants no powers. Women should—no, must—be allowed to pursue their own sexual gratification, whether or not procreation is the goal or the relationship a monogamous one, just as a man is free to do so.”
A lanky redhead fluffed her hair, then gave Elizabeth a dazzling smile as she walked by. “Sing it, sister.”
Elizabeth leaned close to Julie as the woman continued out. “Why would I sing?” she whispered.
“It’s just an expression. You know, Liz, I figured you for a cross your legs, no touching below the waist and only over the clothes sort.”
“A lack of experience doesn’t make me a prude.”
“Got it. You know I sort of thought I’d ditch you once we were in and I hooked up, but you’re fun—even if you talk like a teacher half the time. So, you know, sorry for sort of thinking it.”
“It’s all right. You didn’t. And I know I’m not like your friends.”
“Hey.” Julie wrapped an arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders for a squeeze. “You are my friend now, right?”
“I hope so. I’ve never—”
“Oh, thank God.” On that fervent call, Julie made a staggering dash as a stall opened. “So we’re going to Alex’s, right?”
Elizabeth looked around the crowded restroom. All the women freshening makeup and hair, waiting in line, laughing, talking. She was probably the only virgin in the room.
Virginity wasn’t a prize, she reminded herself. So it wasn’t a burden, either. It was hers to keep or lose. Her choice. Her life.
“Liz?”
“Yes.” On a steadying breath, Liz walked toward the next open stall. “Yes,” she said again. Closing the door, and her eyes. “We’ll go. Together.”
AT THE TABLE, Ilya lifted his beer. “If these girls are twenty-one, I’m sixty.”
Alex only laughed, shrugged. “They’re close enough. And mine’s in heat, believe me.”
“She’s drunk, Alexi.”
“So what? I didn’t pour the drinks down her throat. I’m up for