His to Possess

Lucian debated showing her the next photo, but if she became as obsessed about this as he was—and she would—Olivia would eventually see it. It wasn’t out there for the public but rather a shot he’d gotten from police files. However, if Lucian had managed to get his hands on it, then Olivia could, too.

He didn’t look at the photo when he put it on the screen. Didn’t have to. It was branded in his memory.

Now part of the nightmares.

Olivia gasped and pressed her fingers to her mouth. Her gaze rifled over the image. Damien and Marissa still naked but very much dead. Blood, shiny and dark, pooled out from their cold, pale bodies. The gunshot wounds to their heads had seen to that. The stab wounds were just overkill.

“Probably not suicide,” she whispered.

“No. And Damien and Marissa knew they were in danger. I found Marissa’s journal, and she knew someone was stalking them. She thought it was Harvey and was pissed that he wouldn’t leave her alone.”

Pissed was mild.

“Marissa said if anything happened that she’d come back from the grave and castrate him,” Lucian added.

Olivia looked at her hand again. The floor. Then, shuddered. “After that happened, why would you have an office here? Why would you stay here one more minute?” She pushed herself away from his desk and headed for the door.

Lucian grabbed the folded piece of paper and went after her. He caught up with her in the hall and blocked her path so she couldn’t get to the stairs.

“I stayed because of this,” he said, showing her the paper that’d been left on his car a week earlier.

She didn’t take it. Not at first. And even when she did close her still-trembling fingers around it, Olivia didn’t open it.

Lucian opened it for her. “I believe Damien and Marissa’s killer wants to murder them—again.”

Chapter Three

“I’m sorry,” Lucian said.

Olivia heard the words, but she couldn’t ask him why he was apologizing. That’s because she saw what was written on the note, and her heart dropped to her knees.

Digging up bones will get you killed—again.

“Again,” she repeated, well aware that she sounded hysterical. Felt it, too. “Does this person think we’re possessed?”

Lucian pulled in a long, weary breath. Nodded. “I believe so, and I’m sorry about that as well. When I started researching Damien and Marissa, I had no idea it’d bring this all to the surface again.”

He sounded sincere enough. About that. But even with a death threat staring her in the face, Olivia could feel something else.

This damnable heat.

“Come on,” Lucian said, leading her back to his office. He eased her into the chair next to his desk and poured her a drink.

She rarely drank anything other than wine, but in this case, she made an exception. Olivia took the double shot in one gulp. It burned her throat and watered her eyes. Nearly made her want to throw up. But she’d gladly take another one if it settled the tangle of nerves inside her.

Of course, she doubted mere whiskey could do that.

Logic was the only thing that would help here, and Olivia forced herself to think, to find the flaws. Thankfully, it didn’t take her long to come up with something she could question.

“How would their killer have even known we might be possessed?” she asked. “You and I never even met before today.”

Lucian poured himself a drink, leaned against his desk, stared down at her. “Right after I bought this building, someone hacked into my computers. Whoever it was could have seen I was doing internet searches on Damien and Marissa. On spiritual possession. And on you. It wouldn’t have been much of a stretch for their killer to put all that together.” He paused. “Someone hacked into your computer, too, after I hired you.”

Oh, God.

“How do you know that?” she demanded.

He took a long sip of his drink. “I’ve had my PIs keep tabs on you. At first, because I wanted to know more about you. Then, because I was concerned that someone else was keeping tabs on you, too. Whoever hacked into your computer not only accessed your files, they’ve been monitoring everything you do online.”

That didn’t help the panic or the feeling that she was being violated all over again. “You should have told me.”

“I wanted to try to figure out what this person was after. And stop him or her.” He cursed. “No luck with that so far. The PI hasn’t been able to identify the hacker.”

Damn it all to hell! Too bad she wasn’t the ballbuster lawyer that she’d once been because she would find this note writer-computer hacker and drag him to justice.

But she hadn’t been that woman for a very long time.

And if she was to believe Lucian, she was now somebody else.

A curvy, lush blonde with an apparently insatiable need for a married man. Worse, that sexual appetite was aimed at Lucian because Damien was somewhere inside him. Hard to wrap her mind around that, but her body was making it easier and easier for her to believe it.

“If I had to get anything from Marissa, why didn’t I get her looks?” Olivia mumbled. “Instead I get another stalker like Andrew Tatum who’s hell-bent on sending me to the grave.”

“Andrew Tatum,” Lucian repeated under his breath. A muscle flickered in his jaw, and he finished off his own drink. “He was your client.”

“At the beginning, yes. I was set to defend him on assault charges, but he made a pass at me. Several of them, in fact. He became more aggressive, so I told him to get another attorney.” Mercy, it was hard to go back through these memories. “That’s when he started stalking me. Then, the attack happened.”

Lucian didn’t say anything for several moments. “At least he’s in a psychiatric hospital. Whoever wrote that note isn’t, because he left it on my car.”

Despite the tornado going on in her head, another logical thought made its way through. “It has to be Damien’s wife, Estelle, or Marissa’s ex, Harvey. Unless there are other suspects that I didn’t learn about in my research.”

Lucian lifted his shoulder. “Before Damien, Marissa had a lot of lovers. Some married. Some very jealous.”

“Great. I’m not even sure I believe in ghostly possession, but that doesn’t matter. If the person who wrote that note believes it, then we’ve become his or her targets.”

“Trust me, I didn’t believe in it a hundred percent, either, until you walked into my office.”

They weren’t just talking about possession now. But rather the effects of it.

Well, one effect in particular.

“If Marissa had a sexual thing for so many men, then why was it different with Damien?” She shook her head. “It was different, wasn’t it? Because I’d hate to think I’ll start lusting after every man who crosses my path.”

“It was different. It is different.”

There it was again. That totally male voice, pulling her right back in. But Olivia rethought that. Lucian didn’t even have to speak to make her body hum for him. It was that magic again. That pull. So hot and urgent. Unlike everything else in the room.

“Death,” she repeated in a mumble. “The smell of it is everywhere.”