Page 52 of Possess Me! (I Want You To)

But this was different. It was intimate. Private. It wasn’t something he meant to show me—but he had gifted it to me anyway, unaware.

I swallowed, unsure.

More tears fell.

His pillow was growing damp.

I’d never…comforted someone before. Especially not while they were unconscious. I’d never wanted to. Truthfully, I didn’t know how. Maybe my past was to blame. My mother and her icy personality. The parade of nannies I’d gone through so quickly I’d never learned their names. The too-large age gap between my sisters and me. The standard I’d always had to uphold as the oldest Rain sibling, till the day I’d decided enough was enough and burned it to the ground.

If not that, then maybe it was the years I’d been kept prisoner by a madwoman. All the twisted things I’d done to please her. All the tears I’d caused. The cruelty I’d given birth to. In the end it didn’t matter why I was the way I was. My weaknesses were my own. And for the first time in my life I felt the need to do something about someone else’s pain.

I wasn’t sure if it was empathy, or possession. Anger that something else could elicit such a strong reaction from him.

Luca’s hair was downy soft as I carded my fingers through it, startled—like always—by how very warm he was. Even his sweat was fascinating as I detangled his bangs, gently swiping away his tears with my thumbs till they stopped flowing and his lips ceased wobbling.

I didn’t know why he was crying.

I wished I did.

Maybe then I could stop it.

It was annoying. It was all annoying. I hated it. That’s why my chest was so tight. And that’s why my hands didn’t feel like my own. Not because I hated when he was upset. He was just annoying. Yes. That was it.

His wet lashes clumped together like spiderwebs.

At some point Luca woke up. His breathing pattern changed. Long fingers twitched as consciousness flickered behind his bruised eyelids. The damage from his kiss with the asphalt was gone, all that remained was a faint scar along the swell of his cheek.

Luca’s furrowed brow was still present and even though I knew he was conscious now and everything inside me screamed to move back, I couldn’t help myself. I pressed my thumb against the tensed muscle and gently rubbed it away, my heart stuttering, desire trickling through my veins. My heartbeat was just an illusion. A trick of the mind. A mechanism of the spell meant to keep the dead alive but… It felt real. Sickeningly so.

Luca didn’t speak.

He didn’t have to.

Without opening his eyes he leaned into my hand, and fanned a gentle kiss against the fragile skin on the inside of my wrist in thanks. Irritated, I slipped my hand in a line down his chest, and under the hem of his tiny underwear till my fingers settled on his cock, and the turned-on little whimper that left his lips rocketed us officially back into familiar territory.

Tears glistened on his cheeks as his face scrunched up, and he spread those long legs wide in invitation. The second his eyes fluttered open and his gaze met mine it finally hit me that there was no way in hell I was letting him go.

It wasn’t fair that the morning after Prudence had comforted me for the first time, I was accosted with Violet’s ire before I’d even had breakfast. Being awoken by a Prudence-patented hand job the previous night had gone a long way in fixing my dark mood, buuuut orgasms did not Hunter-flavored nightmares fix. Sadly. I’d gone back to bed hopeful, only to be disappointed by fate.

“What are you doing?” Violet’s voice was way too loud and I grimaced, covering my ears in a way that was probably childish, but fuck—did she have to yell?

“It’s like nine a.m., Violet. My ears are not awake yet.” I complained, though—that was about how long it took me to realize that she was standing right in front of me, very real, and very exhausted. “Woah!” I removed my hands, stared down at her pixie-esque face as a grin split my cheeks hard enough they burned, and I wrapped her up in my arms. “You’re here! Early! When did you get back?”

I gave her body a happy shake, more than pleased by the indignant little noise she released. I swore I could hear her piercings rattle. Despite her annoyance, Violet hugged me back. Her blood-orange perfume was just as delicious as I remembered and I huffed it up like a greedy pig snuffling the forest floor for snacks.

“Oh my god I missed you!” I gave her another shake and Violet laughed, clearly forgetting she was supposed to be irritated by the hug because she squeezed me back just as tight. She was smaller than me, though not by much height-wise. The real difference came in the size of our frames. I was long and gangly with muscle built from years enjoying the great outdoors, and a few sweaty, baseball-filled summers in high school. Violet was all sharp elbows, and paper-thin bone. My shoulders were nearly twice as broad as hers, and yes, we’d measured. “How the fuck are you, dude? How was your flight? Did you Uber here?”

Violet had a natural layer of softness that made her more than appealing to hug.

Even though it was early, she’d already donned her goth armor. Black fishnets over a black tube top, paired with a pleated purple skirt. Her chunky platforms easily gave her an extra six inches in height. I rarely saw her without them. Apparently, the fact it was nine a.m. and she more than likely had jet-lag wasn’t a strong enough deterrent to go without. I was honestly glad to see she’d dressed up. It meant she wasn’t too tired—or too angry. Good. Things between us had been a bit awkward since she’d taken up a vendetta against my ghost-man-friend. With a snort, Violet eyed the robe I’d stolen from her, shaking her head, her eyes alight.

“I don’t know how you haven’t torn the seams on that thing, getting your big ass shoulders inside.”

I’d torn a stitch.

Or two.

Not that I’d tell her that.

---