19. Date Night
Chapter nineteen
Date Night
Nicolette
J ulian and I walked into the lab building lobby holding hands and kissing, all for show.
A show I was liking way too much.
There was something different about him.
Less vampire, more man. When we touched—when he kissed me—he wasn’t turning me into take-me-now Barbie.
Was that because of what we’d been through today?
Maybe facing death together and surviving it had bonded us in some weird trauma-romance way.
Or maybe I was just getting used to him.
Or . . . was it my blood?
Was it changing him?
I needed answers. Badly. What I’d seen under the microscope had blown a hole through everything I thought I knew about biology, my mother, and myself. I felt like I was stuck in a permanent state of shock, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever come down from it. What else didn’t I know?
The only thing I knew for certain was that every time Julian pressed his lips to mine, something stirred in me.
Something new. Something sweet and confusing and definitely not pretend.
But what else could we be? I depended on him for my survival right now.
I hoped—prayed—he was worthy of my mother’s secret.
I felt like I had no choice but to tell him.
Rafael, the new security guard, was manning the front desk.
He was already standing when Julian and I walked in, acting like twitterpated newlyweds.
Eyes only for each other, stolen kisses, dazzling smiles, soft giggles escaping my lips.
We’d done the same act for Amos when we left the hotel.
Julian had even whispered to him about my fake fantasies.
Well . . . sort of fake.
Let’s just say there was a decent probability I’d had wild fantasies about a secret rendezvous in the lab.
Regardless, it was embarrassing for Julian’s family to know about them.
But at this point, it was all about survival, so I tried not to die inside when I thought about it.
There was a good chance I would never look any of them in the eye again.
I just hoped they couldn’t tell that we hadn’t actually had sex.
Them and their weird sniffing powers. I would think now that Julian had drunk my blood, we should smell at least somewhat the same to them.
Julian carried a picnic basket. Inside it we’d hidden the small cooler with several blood samples. Slung around my shoulder was a backpack with my mother’s laptop and the coroner’s report. The makings of such a sexy date.
The lobby was dim and mostly silent. The motion-activated overhead lights flickered awake as we walked in. The faint hum of freezers and centrifuges filled the air, along with that sterile, chemical-clean smell I’d grown up around. It should have comforted me. Tonight it only made my pulse race.
“Julian. Dr. Rossi,” Rafael said, apparently surprised—though with his vampire senses he’d have heard our car the moment we pulled into the lot. And he’d no doubt watched us on the security feeds he was monitoring.
“Hello, Rafael,” Julian said smoothly, his voice warm and perfectly casual.
I leaned into him, placed my hand on his chest, and looked up at him adoringly, like some starstruck teen. I mean, he was the most incredible-looking man I’d ever seen, so it wasn’t hard to play my part. But still—this wasn’t me.
“My wife and I would like a little private time in the lab, if you get what I mean,” Julian said, all smooth British velvet.
“Oh. Yeah,” Rafael replied, his tone dripping with sleazy implication.
Oh. My. Gosh.
Heat flooded my face so fast, I thought I might spontaneously combust. I buried my head deeper into Julian’s chest, absolutely refusing to make eye contact with Rafael ever again. I was going to die. Right here. In the lobby. Death by humiliation.
“Please make sure we aren’t disturbed,” Julian added—less a request, more a threat wrapped in polite diction.
“You got it, boss.”
Thankfully, Julian didn’t stick around for pleasantries and whisked me across the lobby and down the hall to the lab.
It didn’t help my embarrassment when he murmured things .
. . intimate things . . . in that low, deliberate way of his, loud enough for Rafael to hear every syllable.
He was leaving no doubt in the guard’s mind about what we were supposedly here to do.
I only had myself to blame. This was my plan, after all. It had sounded brilliant in the penthouse—or in my head, where it absolutely should have stayed.
By the time we reached the lab door, my face was so hot, I was surprised the fire suppression system didn’t engage.
I swiped my key card and punched in the code, grateful for the barrier between us and the world.
Terror and excitement twisted together in my stomach, a strange cocktail I wasn’t sure I could handle.
But I couldn’t deny it—I was desperate to know what I might discover tonight.
I flipped on the lights, and just the sight of all the equipment calmed me. Until Julian shouted, “Nicolette, you naughty girl.”
I rolled my eyes. That was laying it on a little too thick. Not that I could talk after my Come to Mama moment.
He smirked, eyes dancing with amusement.
We said nothing else until he pulled out his phone and blasted Sade. Her sensual voice filled the space like we were about to film a very questionable music video.
“Don’t forget to whisper,” Julian murmured in my ear, “unless you intend to cry out in the throes of passion.”
“Ha ha,” I whispered back. “How about I start running some tests instead?”
I took a breath, letting the familiar sounds and smells of the lab settle my nerves.
“First, I need to confirm what I saw earlier wasn’t a fluke.
I’m going to separate the plasma again, run a quick binding test, and see if the suppressive effect repeats.
If it does, then I’ll start isolating whatever molecule is doing this.
After that, I’ll extract your DNA and run PCR.
If there’s a mutation driving your pathways, I’ll see the first signs of it tonight. ”
“You have no idea what a turn-on it is when you talk like that, darling.” Julian kissed my cheek.
“Yes, I’m sure it gets you all hot and bothered.”
“It does. Knowing how intelligent and passionate my wife is brings me a great deal of pleasure.”
“You don’t have to pretend in here,” I reminded him.
He gently brushed back my hair and gazed at me with such open adoration that I felt it all the way to my toes. “I’m not pretending, Nicolette.”
Why did I want to believe him?
“I’m going to get to work,” I deflected.
Yes. Work. If I didn’t, I was going to start kissing him—and not for show. The near-death experience was definitely messing with my head. That and the fact that once upon a time I had thought I was falling in love with him.
“I’m going to start running the samples I brought from home as a baseline,” I said, forcing my brain into scientist mode.
“But I’m going to draw my blood again, just to make sure I didn’t contaminate it last time.
” I was sure I hadn’t, but what I’d seen felt impossible.
I needed to know for certain. “Will you be all right if you’re exposed to my blood again? ”
“I believe so. I’m feeling much more in control of myself after the plasma treatment. Even so, your blood seems to quell my hunger in ways I didn’t think possible. So while I crave it still, you reminded me today what it feels like to be human, and I can resist.”
“That’s excellent news. While I run tests”—I handed him my backpack—“see if you can break into my mom’s files.” Apparently Julian had some hacking skills. He’d once befriended Kevin Mitnick, the famous corporate hacker. He’d been intrigued by the man and his drive.
Julian took the pack and passed me the picnic basket in exchange. “I’ll also look through the coroner’s report to see if I missed anything the first time.”
I nodded. It was strange—comforting, even—how it felt like we were a team. A real one. I just wished I knew exactly what we were up against. “Let’s go, team,” I whispered.
I set the picnic basket on the bench and washed my hands, humming the little song I used to sing when I was younger.
“Gloves, tubes, pipettes . . . let’s do this.
” Silly, yes—but I needed anything to ground me tonight.
Even if Sade was serenading us loudly in the background, inviting sultry thoughts I had no business thinking.
Instinctively, I tied my hair back, snapped on my gloves, and turned on the centrifuge, praying it wouldn’t hum too loudly over the music. Otherwise, Rafael was going to think we were getting really kinky in here. Then I powered up the PCR machine and one of the lab computers.
I grabbed the samples from home—my baselines for the night.
My hands shook as I set them on the workbench.
I didn’t know what was waiting for me on the other side of these tests.
What had my mom known that she never told me?
Was I some kind of freak of nature? Why did my blood quell Julian’s bloodlust?
If she knew about vampires, why didn’t she tell me?
I knew why. I would have thought she was insane. Or maybe a vampire—like my vampire—had threatened her life if she told anyone.
My vampire?
Is that what Julian was to me now?
I peeked over at him, seated at the workbench next to mine.
He was poring over the coroner’s report while a program ran on the computer, trying to break into my mother’s files.
He really was something to behold, even in an uncharacteristically simple T-shirt and jeans.
His hair always looked styled, even when mussed, and he had this stillness about him—focused, composed, utterly unbothered by the chaos unraveling inside me.
I had to wonder—how had this become my life?