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 perfectly toned chest.
No shirt.
Bare skin on bare skin.
Olivia caught a whisper of another scent. Not death. This time it was something expensive and totally male. But both the image and the scent were gone before she could even latch on to them.
Much to her disgust, she wanted to latch on to them.
“How?” she asked, hoping he could make sense of the string of questions. “Why? And what is this?”
Lucian stepped back, and she immediately felt the loss. Or something. Yes, she was perhaps going insane, but Olivia forced herself to stay put when he went to his desk. Best to keep some distance between them.
“You’ll want to see this,” he assured her, and he turned the laptop screen in her direction. With a few clicks on the keyboard, a photo popped up. One that she instantly recognized.
“That’s Damien Brannon,” she supplied. One of the people she’d researched at Lucian’s request. And someone Olivia had dreamed about since she’d started this whole research mess. “He was a wealthy businessman.”
“He was murdered nearly thirty years ago.”