Heartbitten (A New Adult Vampire Romance Novel) (10 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Robb held the woman's gaze for another moment before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his wallet. The thirst inside of him was parching his throat, and it took all of his effort not to lick his lips. He threw the money on the table and walked over to where the woman was sitting alone at her table.

"Mind if I sit?" he asked, pulling out the chair before he got an answer.

The conversation was as bland as he thought it would be, and more than once he thought about standing up and leaving. He could go home and drink more wine and maybe get some rest. Call Doctor Vasin and let him know that he had another client. Get Gerry to make him one or four of his famously strong martinis—as the saying went, two was too many and three was not enough.

But he was hungry.

Hungry. Thirsty. He used the words interchangeably now. Food and drink passed through him as it would any human, but neither one sated the dark appetite that they had given him. When he went without blood for a long time he would inevitably grow empty inside. His body would weaken, his energy would be sapped.

Black ghosts. That's what he'd used to call them. A better term than vampyr, or whatever they called them nowadays. He felt as though he moved through the world without touching it, his only mark the traces of darkness he left behind in the healed necks of his victims.

Once he had tried to commit suicide, a long time ago. Before he knew how to satisfy his cravings without killing. He had walked into the deep forests of England until he was too weak to walk, and then he lay down on the forest floor waiting to die. He lay there for days, weeks. His body shivered and his limbs jerked with pain. His stomach turned on itself and his lips bled freely, scabbed, cracked, and bled again. The only water he drank was the dew that condensed on his lips. He became little more than a pale skeleton, eyes hollow, heart empty.

Still, he did not die.

Finally a squirrel had come too close and he'd killed it. He waited another day before drinking the stale blood, and then he gave up and crawled back to London. There was no way to kill himself, and dying for all eternity in the middle of the forest was no way to live. Even for someone who'd given up hope at feeling human emotion.

Since then he'd figured out that you didn't need to kill to survive, though he'd had to change names a few times before settling on Robert Chatham. Robert—his real name, his given name. The name he'd had back when he'd been human. Life couldn't have been better. He invested his money wisely and soon was living the lifestyle of a billionaire playboy, without any thought to what came next. He'd had so much fun as Robert Chatham that he'd lived three lives under that name—the second Robert Chatham travelled abroad, and by the time Robb came back as Robert Chatham III, those who had known him the first time believed that he was the grandson of the billionaire. It was a clever ruse, only made possible by Doctor Vasin.

Lately, though, he'd been starting to grow itchy. Not for travel—he'd been from Fiji to Zimbabwe and back, and everywhere he went was the same. What he couldn't truly admit to himself, what he was starting to realize, was that he was lonely. The other vampires he knew were killers, ruthless and fiercely independent, and he stayed away from them as much from respect as from fear. But how could he relate to humans? There was only blackness in his heart, a huge, bulging cancerous emptiness that ate away at the roots of all of his relationships, rotting them from the inside out.

"How's your wine?" the woman asked. Her name was Michelle, or Melissa, something like that. She was gorgeous, of course. One of her perfectly manicured nails tapped against her wine glass and Robb's tongue thickened at the sight of the fire-engine red nail polish. Fast. Get her home fast, done fast, get her out fast.

"Terrible," he said, pushing away his glass and checking the time only to show off his expensive watch. The girl had practically salivated while looking him up and down, and he knew the type. So many girls wanted a rich man to buy them toys and play in all of the exotic and expensive ways London let you play. He wouldn't disappoint her, at least not tonight. "I have a 1972 vintage from my personal acreage in the Loire in my cellar. Care to join me?"

Of course she did. Robb caught himself yawning as he walked her out to his car.

"What do you do for business?" the woman asked, her fingers smoothing the leather armrest between them. Her eyes had widened at the Porsche, but now she was prying. Trying to see exactly how lucky she was going to get, how hard to try. Depressing.

"I work at the university," Robb said on a whim. "In the chemistry lab."

Her plucked eyebrows furrowed.

"You don't like chemistry?" He was needling her, seeing how much it took to annoy. A stupid game, one he played on occasion when he was too bored or the woman was too stupid. In this case the latter.

"I'm not really a science person," she said, laughing and twirling her hair. "Unless you mean, you know,
chemistry
." She leaned over and touched his shoulder, giggling.

"Chemistry itself is quite fascinating," Robb said in a professor's didactic tone, trying not to burst into laughter at her disappointed expression. "I specialize in chromosomal transformations inside of organisms, specifically the NK cells in the lymphoid cell line."

"Mmmhmm."

"The cultures I'm developing now in the lab are getting ready to be put into the irradiation chamber and then they'll be tested for, ah, chromosomal abnormalities."

"Uh huh." The woman's smile was cracking now, ready to fall off of her face. Robb leaned closer to the woman. Her pupils dilated into dark saucers. That fuck me now look. He could tell the instant a woman had made up her mind.

"If we find an abnormality, of course that's no guarantee that it's the right chromosome transformation. There are lots of possible transformations that can happen."

"Oh, really?"

"Sure!" Robb's voice was bright, and he almost chuckled aloud when the woman stifled a yawn. "Let's see. The first type that I'm looking for is a transformation of monosomy 7, that's the disorder most common to myeloid malignancies. But there's plenty more..."

Robb had ticked off twenty more chromosomal transformations by the time they reached the apartment, but by the look in the woman's eyes, she wasn't ready to give up yet. Good, then he would feed tonight. He didn't know why he was trying so hard to turn her off. Maybe to punish himself.

"Is this your place?" she asked.

"Top floor," Robb said, resigned to another empty night. In the elevator she pressed herself against him and he moved his hands over her body halfheartedly. The same pert breasts, the same tight tummy. His lips moved to her neck, and the steady beat of her pulse turned him on more than anything. He brushed his lips over her skin and breathed in, trying to smell the blood just underneath.

"It's Chloe," she said.

"Huh?"

"The perfume. It's Chloe."

"Oh. I thought you were telling me your name."

"No, silly, my name's Michelle!" She giggled, a high-pitched giggle. He kissed her then, to shut her up, and by the time the elevator doors opened she was all over him. They stumbled forward and he fell back onto the couch. She fell on top of him, whether because she was drunk or horny he didn't know. He kissed her hard and
pretended passion.

"Oh, Chloe," he moaned.

"Michelle!" Another giggle. Right. Michelle. He grabbed her ass and grinned, pretending that he had meant the joke. Her lips tasted like the wine they'd had, slightly soured on her breath. Her face was caked in makeup—in the light of the foyer he could see just how much. But he was hungry. He closed his eyes while she kissed him and, unbidden, another face appeared in his mind. A face with dark hair and green eyes. The woman who could have been the girl he loved, only grown up. He moaned as the woman atop him ran her hands down between his thighs, thinking about someone else's hands on top of him. He bit down on the woman's neck, feeling the taste of blood on his tongue and imagining the taste of another girl.
Liz
. She was off-limits in real life, but in his mind, ah—

His attention had been elsewhere when they'd come in, and he hadn't noticed anything. So when he heard a sharp inhale of breath from the other room, his eyes snapped open.

Liz stood gaping in the lab just beyond the foyer, her face wide-eyed through the slit of the door. He froze, his lips still stained with blood, the smell still thick in his nostrils. All of his hunger was gone, but the hollow in his stomach remained, struck through with an icy fear.

She'd seen.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Liz moved then, her arm jerking out instinctively in front of her. As though she could close the door between them by will. She knocked over the flask on the lab table with her hand and coughed as she righted the glassware. The woman on top of Robb turned her head, and Liz saw Robb swipe his thumb quickly over the smear of red on her skin.

"Who the hell is that?" the woman said.

Liz grabbed her purse and slung it over her shoulder. She had to get out of there.

"Nobody. Time for you to leave," Robb said to the woman, who looked confused as he herded her back into the elevator and pressed the button to the ground level.

"Hey!" she cried out, as Robb stepped back into the foyer. "What the
hell
!"

Liz had reached the doorway and was at the lab door by the time the elevator doors closed on the woman's indignant expression. She closed the lab door behind her, but Robb was already striding across the foyer toward her. She'd known that he was upset, but she didn't expect anything like what happened next.

The deadbolt clicked shut behind her just as Robb shoved her up against the door. Her purse fell to the floor, her phone and makeup clattering out onto the tile. One hand wrapped itself around her throat, and she gasped as he pressed her back, his face inches from hers. There was an anger in his eyes that she had never seen before. His dark irises seemed to flash with flickers of red as he leaned close, his lips raised in a snarl.

"What did you see?" His voice was throaty, gravelled.

"Nothing," she said.

"
What did you see
?!" The roar resonated across the foyer, and Liz struggled in vain to get out from under his grasp. His hand tightened around her neck. His arms were so strong! She tried to push back but she couldn't. It wasn't even as though he was pushing back more strongly. It was more like his limbs were iron, impossible to even think about bending.

"Nothing!
Nothing
! I can't—I can't breathe—" Liz choked out. "Don't—please—"

Robb let go, stepping back suddenly, and air rushed into her lungs. She coughed and slumped against the wall. The red wrath disappeared from his eyes, though his brows were still knitted together.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice straining to stay calm.

"I'm working." Liz's fear had been supplanted by anger. "Or do you not remember giving me a key to the lab?"

"Very funny," Robb said. His eyes darted toward the other door, then back to Liz's face. He looked her up and down.

She crossed her arms over the front of her sweatshirt, unwilling to let him get the upper hand again.

"What are
you
doing?"

"What am
I
doing? I should think that would be apparent," Robb said dryly. "Unless you're even more virginal than I originally thought."

"Excuse
me?!" Liz said.

"I suppose now you're going to tell me that you're really here to do lab work."

"I am! I did!" Liz's face flushed hot, the skin on her face tightening. "Of course I'm here to do lab work!" she sputtered. "I just ran two dozen tests through the cytometer! What else would I be doing here?!"

Robb stepped forward, and Liz swallowed hard as his finger brushed back a tendril of her hair and lingered on her cheek. He leaned forward, and Liz could smell the sharp pungency of his cologne along with something else, a metallic scent.

"I should think that would be apparent," Robb whispered, drawing his finger down the side of her cheek and down to her neck. Despite her fear and anger, Liz couldn't help her body's response to the touch. Her skin tingled all along the path that he'd traced. But when his finger began to slip under the collar of her sweatshirt at her neck, she grabbed his hand in her fist.

"Stop," she said. "I'm not...I'm not going to do this."

"Do what?" Robb asked. He was still dangerously close, so close that she could feel the warmth of his body radiating outward. Desire was written all over his face. Liz licked her lips and Robb's eyes flickered down to watch her tongue. He frowned. "I'm not sure at all what to do with you."

"Nothing!" Liz pushed him back, and this time he relented, stepping away from her. Now that he wasn't pressing close against her body, the chill of the room made her shiver. "We're supposed to be
professional
, remember? And I don't appreciate you attacking me for absolutely no reason, you...you
asshole
!"

"Asshole? I seem to remember someone calling me that at some point."

"What kind of girls let you push them around like that? You think
I'm
like that?"

"No," Robb said, tilting his head and giving her a strange look. "You're not like any of them."

"Right, I'm too naive. Too
virginal
." Liz's lip trembled, but she bit down in anger. She rubbed her neck, although the ache was already fading away. "You're lucky I don't call the cops on you."

"I'm sorry," Robb said. "Are you alright?" He reached out a hand toward her neck and she slapped it away hard.

"Don't touch me!"

"I'm sorry," Robb said, but he was distracted in thought. He smoothed his hair back with one hand, a conflicted expression on his face.

"Right. Sure you are."

"Really. I'm very sorry. I let my instincts get the best of me. That hasn't happened in...in a while." Robb pursed his lips.

"Whatever, sure, I forgive you."  Liz bent down and scooped her stuff back into her purse, not even feeling the least bit embarrassed to find that a tampon had scuttled across the floor. She shoved it into her purse and stood back up, avoiding Robb's gaze.

"Liz?"

"I'll make sure to keep the door closed next time so you don't have to choke me out." She stepped forward but Robb moved in between her and the elevator, catching her by the arm. She pulled away, opening her mouth to protest, but the look in his eyes left her speechless. It was an emotion that she had never expected to see on his face.

Fear.

"What did you see?" Robb asked softly. His voice had a low tremble to it. "Tell me exactly."

They stood facing each other. Liz lowered her arm. She had to keep herself from feeling sorry for him. He was the asshole, after all. But seeing him scared tore her apart inside. She wanted to run; she wanted to take him in her arms. Everything inside of her was whirling around and she had to get out.

"You were kissing." She cast her eyes down. "I didn't even see her face."

"Anything else?"

"Nothing."

Blood.
There had been blood.

"Liz."

"
Nothing
, okay! You were getting a little rough, that's it, I don't know!" Liz threw up her hands. "I don't care what kind of BDSM you do with your girls or what kind of sex dungeon you have, and I won't tell anyone about anything I saw!
Okay
?"

Robb bit his lip. He seemed to be thinking something over and then he looked up, his shoulders set.

"Okay," he said. "I'll see you back at the lab."

Liz hurried into the elevator.
Get out. Get out now.
Her mind was screaming for her to leave, but a pain of sympathy made her want to stay. To comfort him. Spend the night with him.

Blood. He'd bitten her.

With a shudder, she suppressed the thought and punched the button for the lobby.

As the doors closed, she saw Robb sink down onto the couch in the foyer, his head in his hands.