Page 23 of Possessed

Aubrey stood.“Just a little hope, and that plus pleasure and joy makes for a feast.”The ghost lifted her hand and Lauren stood beside her. The women smiled at each other.“Are you ready?”Aubrey asked her.

“As I’ll ever be,” Lauren said. Raef thought she sounded nervous.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll drive,”Aubrey said teasingly.

“You always were better atdrivingthan me,” Lauren said. She shook back her hair and laughed. “Just do it. I’m ready to take one for the team.”

Aubrey looked from her twin to Raef. Shereallylooked at Raef—moving her gaze from his feet, all the way up, slowly, to meet his eyes. Raef felt himself start to harden.What the hell? Just her look does that to me?

Then Aubrey turned her gaze back to Lauren.“Oh, please, sis! Take one for the team? This is going to be better than buttered popcorn and Raisinets!”

Raef thought he heard Lauren whisper something that sounded like “Nothing’s better than popcorn and Raisinets…” but he couldn’t be sure, and what Aubrey did next blew his mind so totally and completely that he forgot everything except what was happening right before him.

Aubrey and Lauren were facing each other. Lauren opened her arms and Aubrey stepped into them, as if they were going to embrace. But their joining didn’t end with a hug. Aubrey seemed to melt into Lauren. Slowly and without any of the ripping or tearing or shattering that had come before, Aubrey disappeared.

Lauren was silent and still for several moments. Then she lifted her right hand. Staring at it, she traced the fingers of her left hand down her palm, wrist and forearm. “Wow, I’d forgotten.”

“Lauren?” Raef asked, even though his gut told him her answer before she did.

She turned blue eyes to him. Her smile widened. “No, Kent, not Lauren. Or at least notjustLauren.”

“Aubrey!”

She closed the few feet between them. “Yes, it’s me.” She lifted her right hand again, cupping his cheek. “You shaved just this morning, but you’re already stubbly. All that dark, manly stubble. I like it. It’s going to feel wonderful against Lauren’s soft skin.”

“Possession—it’s, uh, dangerous.” He sounded like an idiot, but her touch had his pulse jumping and his dick hardening.

Her hand went from his cheek to his neck. Her fingers were soft and delicate and so, so warm. They slid from there down the front of his sweatshirt, pausing over his nipple, where she used her nails, lightly, to caress him.

He inhaled sharply.

She smiled.

“For most people it is dangerous, but we’re twins. We shared the same womb. It’s different for us.” As she spoke, Aubrey moved her hand to the waist of his jeans. There she paused again, and slipped her hand up under the edge of his sweatshirt, until her fingers touched the skin just beneath his belly button. There she used her fingernails again. Lightly she stroked naked flesh, following the waistline of his jeans.

“It’s still not healthy. Not right.” Raef was breathing so hard he sounded like he was running a damn marathon.

“This is where the part about promising to be open comes in.” Her fingertips moved down until they found his erection, and then she traced the long, hard line of his cock—slowly—up and down. “Kent, you strike me as a man who keeps his promises,” she whispered as she leaned into him. “Am I wrong?”

“No!” The word came out with a moan of desire. “But you’re not alive. And you’re not Lauren.”

“Kent, just open yourself to me and let yourself feel it.” She lifted her other hand and curled it around his broad shoulder.

“Feel what? All I can feel is you, and I’m fucking sure that’s not right!”

She smiled. “Yes, feel me, but also let yourself feel hope—the hope that there is more to this life than what you’ve known, or even what you’ve believed yourself capable of.” Then, before he could say anything, or move away, or second-guess what was happening, Aubrey kissed him.

She was sweet and soft, and so damn warm. Her mouth was open and inviting, and he could not say no. His arms went around her and his tongue met hers, touching, tasting, desiring, and as he moaned again and lost himself in the taste of her, hefeltit—hope. It filled him to overflowing. He’d been right in the bedroom. It was better than pleasure and joy. It was a rare and wonderful thing that lit him from within.

Raef stopped kissing her long enough to look down at her flushed, smiling face. “I don’t care that you’re dead. I don’t care that this is Lauren’s body. Right now—for this moment—I’m going to hope that somehow this is all going to turn out right. And I gotta have you, Aub. I gotta.”

“Then I’m yours—for this moment.” She gave him a little push and he sat back on the couch. Lauren had been wearing a pullover sweater the color of her eyes, and a pair of ass-hugging jeans. Still smiling at him, Aubrey pulled off the sweater and unzipped, then stepped out of, the jeans. She paused for a moment, looked down at herself and laughed softly. “French lace from Muse at Utica Square. Sis, I knew I could count on you for the sexy specialty lingerie.” Her eyes found Raef again. “Do you like it?” Aubrey touched her nipple through the pink lace.

How the hell could pink lace be so damn sexy?

Raef nodded and swallowed. His mouth felt dry. “Yeah,” he said gruffly. “I like it. A lot.”

“And this?” Her hand moved caressingly down her softly rounded, womanly belly to the tiny triangle of pink lace that was the matching thong panty.