Heartbitten (A New Adult Vampire Romance Novel) (7 page)

"I have something to show you," Robb said. "Don't worry, it's not my chiseled naked body. At least, I wasn't planning..."

"Okay! Okay!" Liz threw her hands up. "I won't ask again." She could feel the heat rising to her skin. She couldn't tell if he was flirting with her or teasing. Maybe both. Was that what flirting was? Was it his British accent?

It only took a few minutes to drive downtown, where Robb parked on the street just outside a large building that looked for all the world like a huge bank. The outside face of the building was marble, and a doorman opened the large glass door for them. Robb tossed him the keys as he strode inside and took Liz's arm, leading her down the tiled hall and past the security guard.

"Hey Joe," Robb said.

"Hey, Mr. Chatham," Joe replied. He barely looked at Liz, and she realized that to him she was just another girl spending the night. Before she could get annoyed by it, though, Robb had paused in front of the guard's desk.

"Joe, this is Ms. Liz Barlin," Robb said. Joe nodded, evidently surprised to be introduced, and Liz gave a shy hello. "Remember this one," Robb said to him. "Put her on the list for elevator access."

"Sir?" The guard looked taken aback.

"Is there a problem?"

"No, not at all." Joe darted a glance at Liz. "I'll get right on it."

Robb led Liz back past the rows of elevators to the back of the hallway, where there was an access panel embedded into the wall near the last elevator. Liz watched as Robb punched in a code, and the elevator doors slid open.

Liz tucked the elevator code away in her memory: 5427. That one was easy to memorize - fifty-four divided by two was twenty-seven. She'd gotten in the habit of memorizing passcodes as an undergraduate, so that she could sneak into the graduate labs to use their equipment. Same with passwords to computers. Nowadays, she knew all of the phone keycodes and email passwords for all of her friends and family. She never used them, of course, but it was a hard habit to break. She'd only logged into her father's email once, and that was enough to convince her that privacy was something worth keeping.

She stepped into the elevator next to Robb Chatham and wondered what on earth she was doing. He was silent as the elevator rose with a smooth hush from floor to floor. She realized as the doors opened that he hadn't bothered to press a button; this elevator was his and his alone.

The elevator opened out to a windowless foyer - clean tile, a leather couch, and a lush green fern were the only things in the brightly lit room. On the other side of the room from the elevator were two closed doors.

"So you live in a dentist's office?" Liz said, stepping out into the foyer. "Nice."

"Nothing more seductive than a good teeth cleaning," Robb said. "Shall we?"

Liz stepped forward to the two doors. There was no way she was going into Robb's private penthouse. She imagined him twirling her into the bedroom, pushing her up against the wall, kissing her passionately, his hand sliding down her side—

"Now I know what you're thinking," Robb said, stopping outside the leftmost door.

"Do you?" Liz turned her chin up, hoping that her blush wasn't visible.

"You're thinking
'Is this like in Fifty Shades of whatever where the secretive billionaire opens the door and there's a room full of fancy BDSM sex toys and chains and whips and things?
'"

Liz looked at him, mouth agape.

"Well," he said. "It's not
quite
that fancy. More like...classy."

"That's actually not what I was thinking," Liz said.

"No? Well, then, this won't be as much of a surprise as I'd hoped." Robb stepped forward. "
Open door
."

He spoke to the left door, but it was the right-hand door that opened to the sound of his voice. Through the gap she could see a room with shelves full of books, and past that, a kitchen. Robb reached over and pulled the door closed before she could see anything else.

"Damned program never works right. This is the one we want." He took a white card out of his pocket and waved it in front of the leftmost door. The lock clicked and he pushed the door wide open.

"Wow
." Liz spoke quietly, as if on the altar of a towering cathedral.

It was no red room, that was for certain. The laboratory inside of the left door shone brightly from every surface. Clean white tile covered the floor and the stainless steel lab tables gleamed, reflecting the radiant
light. But that wasn't what made Liz shiver with anticipation.

She stepped forward quickly to look at the machine in the center of the lab. Too quickly, as it turned out. As she strode ahead, her foot slipped out from under her and she lost her balance. Before she could catch herself on one of the lab tables, Robb had her in his arms.

He held her up, his fingers firm around her upper arm, the other hand steadying her at the waist. Twin waves of embarrassment and desire tumbled through her body. The touch of his hand on her bare arm made every part of her ache to be held that same way.

"You are doing this on purpose," he said matter-of-factly.

Liz stood up straight, stepping away from him. He let his hand drop, and the connection between them broke. Liz examined her heel, not caring whether or not it was broken but not wanting to meet Robb's gaze head on.

"What? Being bad with heels? I've always been bad with heels." She kicked them off and stood in her stockinged feet.

"Falling into my arms. Swooning, I believe they call it," Robb said. "You've already done it twice."

"That's hardly swooning." Liz said, distracted by something else. "Is this a magnetic refrigerated
centrifuge?" She had already gone over to the huge device to examine it. The centrifuge chamber was clear, and you could see the whirling tubes inside. A touch screen panel monitored the conditions inside.

"This year's model." Robb said. "Are you swooning yet?"

"Your lab looks like an Apple store," Liz said, turning in place.

"I'll take that as a compliment. How did you enroll into grad school without knowing how to walk in heels?"

Liz snapped a look at him. She'd had to deal with too much of that kind of shit in university to let it go.

"They took that part of the entrance exam out, actually," she said. "Now it's just the boring biochemistry questions and professor recommendations."

"Would you like to learn?" he asked.

"Learn what?"

"How to walk in heels."

"I'm sure you're an excellent teacher," Liz said. Was he flirting with her? She couldn't tell. He would touch her one moment and the air would steam between them, but then the next moment his attention seemed far away. "These aren't even my shoes, though."

"Heel to toe," Robert continued, not put off in the slightest by her rejection. "And make sure your feet move in a straight line. Or else you'll look bowlegged."

"Thanks. I'll be sure to remember that. So who works here?" She waved her hand around the lab.

"I do. Nobody else. Not right now anyway," Robb said.

"Nobody?" The lab was huge, and expensively furnished. It seemed like such a waste to have only one person working.

"Nobody I can trust but myself,” Robb said. He smiled, but to Liz's eyes his smile seemed bitter. "And maybe you."

"Me?"

Robb slid over and gripped her hand in his. She breathed out, her heart racing as his fingertips slid millimeter by millimeter over her skin.

"I want to push ahead with work on that protein you were talking about. Would you be interested?"

"Interested in doing what? I'm already working with you." Liz found her head spinning. She didn't know whether it was the offer or the touch of Robb's hand that was doing it, but all of a sudden the room seemed smaller, warmer. She needed a drink of water.

"Running the experiments they won't let you run at the
university." Robb continued on, not blinking at her reaction for an instant. "I'll pay you for your time, of course. A stipend of say, fifty thousand pounds per annum?"

Fifty thousand?
Liz's eyes bugged out of her head. The grad student salary provided her with less than twenty thousand, plus student housing. Robb took the look on her face to mean something else, though.

"Is that not enough?" he asked. "I can never keep up with inflation. You'd think after so long..."

"No, no, of course. That's fine. Better than fine. That's great!" Liz swallowed the lump in her throat. This was happening. It was actually happening. All of the experiments she'd wanted to run and couldn't because she didn't have the grant money—all of the time she'd spend working to get this kind of opportunity—

"Wonderful. You'll start tomorrow then."

He handed her a small white card. She turned it over in her hands. It was like a business card, but plastic. She didn't know how to thank him. Tears sprang to her eyes.

"This will let you into the door," Robb said. "The code for the elevator you already know."

Liz choked on her happiness. He'd caught her looking at the code.

"Sorry!" she said. "I didn't mean to look—"

"No? I don't believe that for an instant. But then again, I should be flattered to think you'd want to come and visit me in my private apartment."

"I don't!"

"You don't?" His voice was a low growl, almost a whisper. Robb looked up at her with puppy dog eyes, teasing her. She swallowed the lump in her throat that had appeared out of nowhere.

"I mean—"

"That's perfectly fine." He grinned and stood up straight, gesturing her toward the door. "I don't have a sex dungeon, anyway. I'm a completely uninteresting billionaire."

"What a shame," Liz said, trying to return her breathing to normal. Maybe Jenny was right. If she got out more often, she wouldn't be so freaked when a guy casually flirted with her.

"I apologize in advance for being a bad influence," he said to her.

"Excuse me?"

"You seem like such a good girl. That's the real shame."

Liz turned to face him.

"If you think
you're
the one who's going to turn
me
into a bad girl, you've got another thing coming."

To her surprise, he stepped forward, bending his head so that his nose was just inches from hers. She could smell his aftershave. Her breath caught in her throat.

"I've already got you breaking the rules."

"I'm here to talk about work. Not to do...whatever it is you do over in your private apartment." Liz waved her hands at the wall that separated the lab from the other side of the building. "Anyway, I don't break rules."

"Really?" he asked. He was so close to her. He could kiss her. She wanted him to kiss her, so badly. She wanted to shove him back even more. Instead she stood on her tiptoes and stared back in defiance.

"Really,
" she said. If he was going to ask her out and then tease her for saying yes...

"I believe lab safety regulations prevent bare feet in the lab."

Liz's jaw dropped open. Robb grinned and moved adroitly around Liz. He swiped his card in front of the reader and opened the lab door for her, giving an overly chivalrous bow.

She clamped her lips shut. Robb waited as she tugged the high heels back onto her feet. He followed her out the door and they crossed the foyer. As they stood side by side in the elevator, Liz let her gaze flit over to the
right-hand door. The door to his apartment.

"Be careful standing there," Robb said out of the corner of his mouth.

"Standing where?" Liz looked down at the floor of the elevator. There was nothing there.

"Standing so close next to me," Robb said, as the elevator started to move. Liz lurched slightly and Robb caught her by the arm to balance her. "Some women tend to swoon."

Liz jerked her arm out of his grasp.

"Thanks for the warning," she said, letting sarcasm drip over her words. He only smiled politely, as though he had been serious. Surely he wasn't serious.

Liz was still holding the passkey he'd given her. She slipped the white card into her purse and followed Robb out into what looked like a private garage, with one black Porsche and one white car that she couldn't identify at first glance. Next to the two cars, a large tank was partially covered with a tarp. Liz peeked under it as she went around to the passenger's side of the Porsche.

"Is this a radiation bubble chamber?" She lifted the tarp with two fingers.

"My backup one, yes," Robb said, sliding into the Porsche. "You know, most girls comment on the Maserati DiSolo."

"Maser
what
i solo?" Liz plopped herself into the passenger seat and buckled in.

"Why even bother?" Robb said, shaking his head.

Liz turned her head to the window and saw a particle streaming through the chamber, leaving a curved streak of bubbles in its wake.

Maybe this billionaire didn't have a sex dungeon. But