His to Possess

And she’d been a blonde. Like Marissa.

These days, Olivia’s hair was brown and pulled into a ponytail. Ordinary on any other woman, but in his eyes, Olivia and ordinary didn’t go together.

In fact, nothing in his life right now fell into the ordinary category.

“You’re not talking,” Olivia reminded him. “You’re not telling me why you think we’re them.”

Yes. But the problem was where to start. Lucian decided to go with the beginning. Well, the beginning of this part anyway.

“The strange experiences started when I drove by this building looking for investment property,” he said, maneuvering himself between the door and her. “Despite the rundown neighborhood, I was drawn to it.”

That was a little like saying the ocean had some drops of water in it.

The building had sucked him right in, and even though he wasn’t into other worldly beliefs, Lucian had instantly bought the place with a phone call. And he’d paid too much for it. Something that still pissed him off. He hadn’t built his fortune by overpaying for anything, including instant obsessions.

“About six months before his death, Damien bought this house to convert it to office space for one of his new business ventures. He met Marissa about three months later. I kept this room, his room, exactly as I found it. Same desk, same bookcases.”

Lucian pointed to the dark wood floor-to-ceiling shelves that flanked both sides of the room. Like the desk, they were carved with coiled snake-like shapes and deep recesses. Everything felt heavy.

Smelled it, too.

There were times, like now, when it felt as if the room were breathing, drawing him in.

Devouring him.

“Shortly after I moved my office here, the images started,” Lucian continued. “Nothing clear at first. Just glimpses of a man and woman.”

“A hand on his chest,” she mumbled.

His gaze slashed to hers. “A hand on her breasts,” he supplied. “The images turned to dreams.”

“Dreams,” she repeated, pointing to the screen. She probably hadn’t meant to touch the exact spot where Marissa was riding Damien hard, and Olivia jerked her hand back. “About them?”

“Yes, among other things.” And he gently put her hand back to the spot she’d just touched. “The dreams got clearer, and I did some research on the internet. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that the dreams were about the couple murdered in this building.”

Lucian paused and hoped this sounded better aloud than it did in his head. “I think from everything that I’ve read, and felt, that Damien’s possessed me.”

No, it didn’t sound better out loud. Hard to make something like that sound good, though.

All his life he’d been followed by that damn voodoo, born in a cemetery shadow. The devil’s child, some had even called him. This wouldn’t help matters.

Olivia swallowed hard. “Maybe you’re not possessed by a murdered ghost. You could just be crazy.”

And she sounded almost hopeful about it.

Sad when this bizarre twist in his life had made her wish for insanity over any of the other possibilities—reincarnation or possession.

Well, he wasn’t too pleased about it, either, and apparently fate was giving him another jab, because in addition to reliving Damien’s memories, Lucian was reliving the man’s intense sexual obsession with Marissa.

“I considered it might be insanity,” Lucian admitted. “Then, I saw your picture, and I knew it was more than that. You know it, too. What’s the first thing you thought when you saw me?”

Olivia opened her mouth, closed it. Groaned. “Finally, you’re back.”

“Same here.” That wasn’t a lie, either. “My second thought was I wanted to back you against the wall, sink hard and deep into you. Kiss you. Then have sex with you again—in that order. But I figured I’d better introduce myself first.”

She stared at him, her mouth slightly open, but she didn’t bolt. Still, Olivia clearly needed something more convincing than talk of dreams, sex and feelings.

Her gaze shifted from his face, to the picture on the screen and back to the front of his pants. That flamed her cheeks some. Maybe because she wasn’t accustomed to tossing her sexual appetite out there like Marissa.

“These pictures didn’t turn up in my research. Where’d you get them?” she asked.

“They were in a box here in one of the storage rooms. Along with this one.”

He reached down, clicked the next photo. Marissa was on her back in this shot, Damien between her legs with his ass lifted in mid-thrust. Judging from their expressions, it was a well-anticipated thrust, too. One that would send them both flying over the edge.

“And this one,” Lucian continued.

The edge flying had happened, and the lovers were lying in a tangle, in the exact spot where Lucian and Olivia were standing. Olivia’s gaze drifted again. To the floor, to the photo.

To him.

Olivia huffed. “Are you sure this isn’t some weird attempt on your part to get laid?” she asked, but then immediately waved him off. “You’re not the kind of man who has to work at getting laid.”

Lucian was flattered. He thought. “I’m thinking you’ll be work.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re wasting your time. I gave up sex. I gave up living. I can’t do whatever it is you want me to do.” She paused. Blinked. “What exactly is it that you want me to do?”

Let me have you didn’t seem like the right response. But it was what every part of his body was pushing him to do. To take her. Claim her. Possess her.

Hell, maybe he was crazy.

“I want answers,” he settled for saying. “Because I can’t make the dreams or this need for you stop. I thought seeing you would help. That once we actually met, it would all go away. But it’s only stronger.”

Olivia swallowed hard and touched the folder she’d put on his desk. “I researched your family and Damien’s for hours. Yes, he was involved with Marissa. After she moved here to Houston, they traveled in the same social circles. Both were rich. But there’s nothing to indicate why they’d come back from the dead and haunt us.”

“But I believe that’s exactly what they did. You and I were born on the same day, like them.”

“You’re sure of your own birth date?” she jumped to ask. “I thought you only had an estimate.”

She was splitting hairs now, and the split wasn’t going to give her the answer she wanted anyway.

“The doctors estimated that I was less than an hour old when I was found in the cemetery that morning. So, yes, we have the same birth dates as Marissa and Damien. Similar histories, too. Like me, Damien was also abandoned at birth, then adopted. Marissa was born to a single mom like you, and both of your mothers died when you were teenagers.”

“Is that how you tracked me down—through our birth dates and similar histories?” she asked. Her voice had hardly any sound.

Lucian nodded “I was searching for a proverbial needle in a haystack. For anything that would click. Then I saw your picture and knew, and it’s all the proof I needed.”

Her gaze sliced toward him. “Well, I need more proof than that!” It had plenty of sound that time.