His To Possess

By Delores Fossen

Time passes, but passion—and vengeance—endure.

The erotic memories are not Olivia's own, yet they shake her to her core. And she knows what it is to be shaken: years ago, a deranged stalker drove her into a life of isolation and distrust. But enigmatic Lucian Wilde will breach all Olivia's defenses, down to her bare skin and very soul.

Lucian believes he and Olivia host the spirits of two lovers brutally murdered decades before. He, too, is consumed by waking dreams of wild encounters with a woman he's never met, inhabiting heated flesh not his own. It's intoxicating, maddening, frightening. When he and Olivia meet, the sensual compulsion is irresistible. She is Marissa, he is Damien—and their desires won't be denied.

But the person who murdered Marissa and Damien is still out for blood. To entice the killer, Olivia and Lucian must give in to passion and possession…and pray that history won't be repeated.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Oct 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781488749520

Delores Fossen

USA Today bestselling author, Delores Fossen, is a former Air Force officer who’s sold over 150 novels. She's received the Booksellers' Best Award for romantic suspense, the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award and was a finalist for the Rita ®. In addition, she's had nearly a hundred short stories and articles published in national magazines.You can contact the author through her webpage at www.deloresfossen.com

Book preview

Chapter One

The moment that Olivia Mercer stepped from her car, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She was being watched. No, not just watched.

Hunted.

She’d had enough experience to know the difference. Well, one experience anyway, but it’d been more than enough.

She glanced around the parking lot at the half-dozen cars and at the nearby houses. When she didn’t spot the hunter, she forced herself to release the breath that she’d been holding and got her feet moving toward the Wilde Commercial Real Estate office building.

Such that it was.

Over a century ago, this place had been in a more upscale area of Houston, on a street lined with lavish homes that only old money could buy. What homes remained now were scabbed with decay and neglect. Blistered paint. Eye-socket windows. Rust-eaten gates, creaking. Most looked ready to fall into piles of ashes. Not exactly a welcoming neighborhood.

It was the same for the Wilde building.

Its lack of welcome, however, wasn’t from neglect. The area immediately around the building had been cleared of the decaying houses, all scraped away and cemented over like tombs. The facade, updated with slick black windows squeezed between crusty blood-red bricks. Near the front door, branches from a pair of weeping willows snapped and stirred with the wind.

Pristine.

But it did nothing to stop her neck hairs from prickling even more.

With reason. It’d once been the site of a double murder, and those old, bad memories were still lingering around.

Best to get this job finished so she could return to the safety of her apartment. Especially since the job itself had been more than disturbing enough. She’d never before let research—or the person who’d requested the research—get to her, but it had happened this time.

She tried to tamp down the fear and excitement of seeing him.

Olivia stepped inside the building, the AC immediately spilling over her. No decay inside here. She could see traces of what had once been the grand house. The art deco–tiled floor and the vaulted ceilings veined with ornate moldings, but now the rooms were offices, all sterile and white.

In color, anyway.

There was still a scent in the air. Not sterile. Something that couldn’t be scraped away or cemented over.

Death, Olivia mumbled under her breath, and the chill slid through her, breath to bone.

The only spot of color in the massive foyer was a receptionist with auburn hair and a turquoise dress. She snagged Olivia’s gaze, and even though she didn’t miss a beat in her phone conversation, she motioned toward a gleaming wood staircase.

Mr. Wilde is expecting you, the woman mouthed.

Good. Because Olivia didn’t want to be here any longer than necessary to give him the report, get paid and leave. Especially leave. Perhaps then this job would stop haunting her.

She made her way up the stairs, expecting a line of office doors as there had been downstairs, but there was only one here on the second floor. It was cracked open a fraction as if someone had been peering out of it.

The feeling of being hunted went up a significant notch, and that’s when Olivia spotted the little cameras placed at strategic points all over the walls. They looked like spiders waiting to pounce, but she figured her hunter was on the viewing end of at least one of them.

Olivia eased open the door the rest of the way, stepped inside, and she jerked to a stop so she could shield her eyes from the nearly blinding sunlight that shot through the massive wall of windows.

Ms. Mercer, he said.

Was that relief in his voice?

Because she was squinting, it took Olivia a moment to pick through the massive room and find him. He stood behind an equally massive desk that looked more fitting for A Game of Thrones episode than a modern-day real estate investor.

Something from another time, another place. Like that scent.

Olivia blinked, her eyes adjusting, so she could take him in. He was tall and dark. Dark hair, dark suit. Dark brown eyes. Olive-tinged skin that hinted of some Mediterranean blood. Lots of angles and a solid square jaw.

Finally, you’re back, she thought.

A ridiculous thought, since she didn’t know Lucian Wilde. She’d seen plenty of photos of him on the internet, and perhaps that’d been enough for that jolt of recognition to work its way into her head. And into her dreams.

Into her body, too.

Maybe leaving wouldn’t put an end to this after all. Whatever this was. But Olivia would certainly try to forget this unforgettable man the first chance she got.

I have your genealogy reports, she managed to say though her mouth had gone dry. The one for the Wildes and the Brannons. As I said in my emails, I never was able to connect the two families, but you might want to try hiring a real genealogist to do that. Family history isn’t my normal area of research.

He motioned for her to put the one-inch thick report on the desk, and when Olivia stepped closer to do that, she saw the split screens on his laptop. No doubt shots from those spidery security cameras outside his office and the parking lot.

You were hunting me, she blurted out. Watching me, Olivia corrected.

Yes, he calmly admitted. Both.

She hesitated, hoping he’d add a smile or joke.

He didn’t.

Seems only fitting, I suppose, she said. Since I know everything about you from the research I did.

Something dark and moody went through his eyes. Not everything.

Still no smile. He was dead serious.

What the devil had she gotten herself into?

Or perhaps he was the devil.

He certainly fit the bill as a man of mystery, power and charisma. A self-made millionaire. The looks. A string of beautiful lovers who’d seemed mesmerized by even a glimmer of his brief attention. The ruthless reputation for destroying his competition.

The mystery part was, well, just that—a mystery.

Lucian Wilde had been born and then abandoned in a New Orleans cemetery. There was no record of his parents, though there was plenty of speculation and whispers of voodoo and black magic. Maybe even an offering to Satan.

After all, what kind of mother gave birth to her baby in a cemetery? And left the child there?

Olivia figured a desperate mother would do that, but desperation didn’t stir a juicy gossip pot the way the other theories did. And it was those theories that had given Lucian not only a sharp, dangerous edge, but the reputation to go along with it.

Lucian stepped toward her, and as she’d done for the past two years, Olivia stepped back. Or that was the plan.

It didn’t happen.

Instead, she froze. Her feet did, anyway, but the rest of her went through some kind of meltdown. Not a psychotic one, at least not of the normal variety. This one was pure heat.

The wrong kind of heat.

It started at her mouth and shot through her like fire hot enough to burn regular fire. First her tongue, then her breasts and belly. The rest of her followed along with this no-touch foreplay that zinged between them. The same kind of foreplay that’d been tugging at her body for days now since she’d seen his pictures.

Disgusted with herself, she shook her head. I don’t like being touched. Or looked at like that. Or feeling this way.

Lucian didn’t pull his lethal gaze from her, didn’t do anything to put her at ease. Because of the attack. It wasn’t a question.

Yes, hard to hide something like that.

Olivia hadn’t actually searched the internet, but there might be photos of her bruised face and battered body. She’d come within a breath of dying since a former client-turned-stalker had gotten his hands, and knife, on her in the courthouse parking lot. She hadn’t been back in a courtroom or her law office since. She’d changed professions because being a researcher required less human contact, and these days she didn’t let people touch her.

Definitely didn’t lust after anyone.

Until she’d seen those photos of Lucian, that is.

Lucian reached out, took her by the fingertips. Barely touching her, but it anchored her in place as if he were holding her in a meaty grip.

You haven’t even looked at the report, Olivia reminded him, hoping it would get him moving away from her and to his desk. Considering you’re paying me a bundle for a rush job, I thought you’d want to dive right into it.

No. It was an excuse to get you here.

Oh, mercy. This was bad.

She had to get out of there, and this time she actually made it a whole step before Lucian snagged her by the wrist and put her against the wall. Olivia dropped her purse on the floor and brought up her knee to ram his balls all the way into his eye sockets.

It certainly seemed like a good idea.

Until her kneecap grazed exactly what she’d considering ramming. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one in the room who was running hot.

He had an erection.

Shit, he mumbled, not pleased about his manly reaction.

Well, she wasn’t pleased, either, especially since it appeared to be for her.

Olivia was breathing through her mouth now. Her chest pumping as if starved for air.

The rest of her was pumping as if starved for him.

Why’s this happening? she asked, not really expecting an answer.

Because you know me.

She especially hadn’t expected that answer.

Olivia couldn’t shake her head fast enough. I don’t.

"Not this face. But you know me."

Did her heart actually skip a beat or two? It sure felt like it. He was weaving some kind of spell, and she had to put a stop to it now.

Olivia managed to slap her hand on his chest to push him away, but even that didn’t work. It only reminded her that she wanted to touch him. Wanted him to touch her right back.

An image flashed through her head. Just a smear of movement she’d already seen in the dreams that she’d been having for the past week.

A hand on a