Chapter 11
JEKYLL
By the time I’d gone home, showered, changed, and returned to the lab, Catherine was already there.
I leaned against the doorjamb as I processed my overwhelming sense of relief. I half-expected her to be halfway to France just to get away from me. Or worse, to have shown up with the police to have me arrested. I stayed where I was, silently watching her.
She must have only just arrived. Her back was turned to me as she unbuttoned her coat.
It was another black, vintage-looking garment trimmed in fur around the hem, wrists, and collar.
As she shrugged out of her coat, I could see she was wearing another black dress.
This one had large purple flowers clustered around the right shoulder.
Truthfully, I had never noticed a woman’s wardrobe before.
Clothes were just clothes. Not with Catherine.
Her wardrobe seemed to be an extension of her personality.
Her dresses were vintage with a modern twist, lending to her otherworldly demeanor.
There were times, when I was certain she wasn’t looking, that I just stared at her.
Wondering if she was real. Her pale, almost translucent skin, full red lips, and thick dark hair were something dreamed up by Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
She was a fairy from the wood come to torment me.
I watched as she retrieved a dustpan from the closet and bent to sweep up the remains of her crushed glasses.
The glasses Hyde thoughtlessly crushed last night.
The glasses I crushed last night.
My instinct was to rush in and take the dustpan from her hand, but I restrained myself. If I did so, she may have felt the need to explain why her glasses were smashed on the floor. I couldn’t face that conversation.
Taking a deep breath, I entered my lab.
“Good morning, Catherine.” I winced. In my effort to sound normal and nonchalant, my voice came off as just the opposite. It sounded hollow and strained to my ears.
She ducked her head and avoided eye contact as she hastily emptied the dustpan into the bin. “Good morning, Henry. Would you like me to start on ordering the inventory items discussed yesterday?”
I nodded as I kept my hands busy by straightening some papers and files on my desk. “Yes, Catherine. That would be very helpful.”
She nodded. “Did you figure out what happened to the benzoylecgonine? Should I order more?”
Flashes of last night spent at some random club as Hyde discussed procuring the benzoylecgonine for his own gains came back to me.
My hand shook as I reached for the tissue box.
I grabbed a wad of tissues and wiped my perspiring face.
In my distress over Catherine, I had forgotten about what Hyde did afterward.
How he sold the most recent version of my formula to some gentleman criminal named The Count.
I didn’t even know the man’s real name so there was no way to track him down.
No way to warn him of the dangers of the formula.
I should report the security breach to my superiors at both the university and the military.
I should, but I wouldn’t. To report it would cost me my research, my career, my life’s work, and worse…
Catherine. If I didn’t have a lab, there would be no reason to see her each day.
When before it was my research that gave me purpose, in a very short time, it had become the sound of her voice, the hint of a smile that teased her lips when she concentrated on reading something, the smell of her perfume, the way she hummed gently as she worked. Her very being.
I crumpled the wad of tissue in my fist and tossed it in the bin. “Yes, order the benzoylecgonine. I reviewed my research notes and realized I had used more of it for versions X3 and X4 than I had previously realized.”
Catherine moved to stand in front of the main laboratory table. “Perhaps today you could tell me more about your research? All I was really told was that it was top secret and something for Her Majesty’s Army.”
As she spoke, her hand glided toward my leather-bound personal research journal.
I launched across the room and slammed the cover shut. “Don’t touch that!”
Catherine’s eyes widened.
My hand froze on top of hers. If it weren’t preventing her from learning my greatest shame, we could almost be mistaken for two lovers clasping hands.
Her eyes filled with tears as her teeth worried her lower lip. “Is it… is it… because of—” She swallowed. “Is it because of what happened with your brother?”
Unable to resist, I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her close. I hugged her tightly for a moment before leaning back. I used one hand to cup her jaw. “I spoke too harshly. Forgive me. Yes, it is because of my… brother… Hyde.”
Her entire body shuddered within my grasp.
There was no fucking way I was going to confess to her that I was Hyde.
Instead, I lied. I looked deeply into the eyes of the woman I was fast falling in love with and lied straight to her face.
I consoled myself by thinking that it was more to assuage her embarrassment than to protect my own cowardly actions, but even I wasn’t convinced.
Her fingers played with a button on my tweed vest as she averted her eyes. “Henry, I can explain—”
Before she could continue, I rushed in. “My brother is a malcontent nuisance. I must apologize for him breaking into the lab last night. I hope he didn’t… I hope he didn’t… frighten you.”
She raised her confused gaze to mine.
Before she could correct my false assumption, I continued in a rush, “I want to thank you for your professionalism in not reporting him to security.”
Her fingers splayed wide across my chest. I hoped she wouldn’t feel the rapid beat of my heart and guess I was lying.
She licked her lips. It was hard not to remember the taste of those same lips as I pushed her against the wall and ruthlessly took as Hyde what I had so hesitantly asked permission for as Jekyll.
Her body tensed. “He told you he broke in? What else did he tell you?”
The ticking of the clock on the wall behind us was the only sound in the room for several seconds.
Part of me wanted to blurt out the truth.
Part of me wanted to know if she preferred my soft touch to the rough insistence of Hyde’s firm hand.
There was also another part of me that wanted to know if she liked me spanking her with my belt as much as I’d enjoyed it.
If she had felt the same rush of endorphins from such a taboo, elicit act as I had.
The evil part of my soul brought out by the formula and Hyde wanted her to get down on her knees, unfasten my trousers, and take my cock into her mouth as she begged me to throw her over the lab table and fuck her senseless again.
My cock hardened. Unlike the last time, I was emboldened enough to keep my arm around her, my hips pressed to hers.
Her cheeks flushed.
I knew she felt my arousal.
I leaned down but hesitated, a breath away from her lips. “Nothing. What else should he have told me?”
Her eyelids fluttered as her gaze flitted from my eyes to my mouth and back. “Nothing.”
I hid my smile.
Liar.
I closed my lips on hers. They were still swollen from Hyde’s harsh kisses last night.
I gently ran the tip of my tongue over her bottom lip, wanting to kiss the hurt away.
Catherine accepted my kiss with a sigh. Her head tilted back as she opened her mouth.
I darted my tongue inside, playfully swirling it around hers.
I flexed my hand over her lower back, drawing her in closer.
Catherine touched my bicep, her fingertips pressing into my skin.
I groaned and deepened the kiss, while still keeping myself in check.
It was a bright morning in the workplace after all.
Catherine broke the kiss and stepped back.
She ran her fingertip under her lower lip as if to brush away any smeared lipstick.
I tucked an errant curl, which had fallen out of the tight bun at the top of her head, behind her ear. “Don’t worry, your lipstick still looks beautiful. It didn’t smudge.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
She straightened her glasses and awkwardly looked around the lab, as if she were reluctant to meet my gaze.
Not sure what to say, I blurted out, “I like your new glasses.”
Her blush deepened.
Fuck.
I was an idiot. Why had I mentioned the glasses?
She adjusted the frames on her pert nose. “Thank you. They are actually my spare pair. I… lost the other pair.”
I tucked my hands into my denim pockets. “They’re cute. I like them.”
She nodded slightly. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Stop talking.
Stop talking.
Stop. Talking.
I let out a long sigh and rocked back on my heels. “Well, we should probably get back to work.” I forced a laugh. “I sound like a boss cracking the whip.”
She paled.
Oh, God.
The belt.
Hyde’s belt.
My belt.
Her ass.
Christ, I’m a moron. I ran my hand through my hair as I spun in a circle. “I just remembered. I think I have a meeting somewhere about something.”
I snatched up my leather journal and rushed out of the lab before she could say anything more.
The moment I crossed the threshold, I slammed the door shut and leaned against it. Hugging my journal to my chest, I groaned. I had my answer.
In Hyde’s embrace, Catherine had melted. Her whole body had trembled with his touch. He had overridden all her natural caution and professional intelligence, turning her into a woman aching for fulfillment no matter the circumstances or cost.
She had felt none of those things with my kiss.
I looked down at my journal. I flipped to the last page and stared at Hyde’s scrawl.
After that disastrous attempt at seduction, can you really blame the woman for falling for the charms of a better man?
Anger and jealousy twisted my stomach. Hyde was not the better man!
He was the more confident, arrogant, egotistical version of my own self.
He was the embodiment of all the bottled-up emotion I had ever experienced, but never felt the freedom to voice.
He was the dark and forbidden thoughts I had always held, but never acted upon.
I was jealous of my other self, my alter ego.
Well, if it was Hyde which Catherine preferred, then I would give her Hyde.