Bitten By The Bad Boy: A Bad Boy Vampire Romance (12 page)

Just as she was feeling relaxed within that space, she reminded herself that he was her new boss. And then she would look at him and try to remember that she was not supposed to be attracted to this person, thinking about his golden skin and his abs and the way his naked chest and arms looked. Round and round she fought with her unease and the creeping sense of apathy that kept returning; it felt like something alien pressing in against her temples.

Chapter Five

The restaurant specialized in sushi and teriyaki. The lights were very low, with a single cube-shaped candle in a glass holder at each table. As they took their seats in a booth near the back, Chloe was aware of his eyes fastened on her. There was a sparkle in them, and she thought that his eyes were the clearest, deepest blue she remembered seeing in a long time. The waiter provided a momentary distraction which she was grateful for. Apparently this was one of his favorite places to eat, because he was familiar with all the menu without having to look.

He ordered a couple of appetizers without asking her opinion, and then said with a smile that he wasn’t making the decision for her, but always had both of these whenever he came. She stuck to safe choices for her entrees: salmon teriyaki and shrimp tempura with fried rice. Jasmine tea was just sweet enough to tease her taste buds and help quench her thirst, which she assumed had more to do with nervousness than dehydration.

“What do you think of our objectives?” Michael asked.

Chloe was a little stunned that he was back to talking about work. This was supposed to be a working dinner, wasn’t it? But she felt jolted by the shift in conversation. This wasn’t supposed to be a date, but he wasn’t looking at her in way that she would think a boss would look at a new employee, someone he didn’t know and hadn’t yet worked for him or produced any results in any measurable capacity. And she wasn’t sure why her opinion about company goals and future projects should matter either, unless it was some sort of test.

“Very ambitious,” she said carefully. “The company has accomplished great things already, I’m sure you have the wherewithal to get the rest of your goals done. It’s just a matter of time, as you were saying at the hospital.”

“That’s one thing I have plenty of,” he said quietly.

The food was very good, and again there was a little pause in conversation while they both enjoyed their meal. Michael’s eyes rarely strayed from her, and the intensity was a little off putting. She wondered if he paid every woman this kind of attention. Her headache had receded but she felt a kind of hollowness, as if the pain might come back any minute.

“Tell me about you,” he said, his voice low and seductive. “I need to know who you are.”

Chloe looked up, and blinked. Maybe the candlelight was playing tricks with her vision. She could have sworn that Michael’s eyes were glowing. The creeping, alien feeling inside her slithered along the back of her neck crawled and settled along the base of her head and at her temples.

“What would you like to know?” she asked him.

His answer was simple. “Everything.”

Chloe started to talk, but she couldn’t even be sure what she was saying to him, only that the words came tumbling out as if she had absolutely no control over them. She told him her favorite flavor of ice cream: death by chocolate. What else she said to him, she didn’t know, but when she came to herself again, she was aware of the passage of time. She took a sip of her tea, and found that it had gone cold.

“I’ll have them bring you another pot of tea,” Michael said. She felt like she’d been talking non-stop. Her throat was sandpaper sore. “Sure,” she said with a nod.

He talked about things that he liked to do outside of work. He practiced martial arts. It helped him learn how to focus, he explained. That became especially important in the beginning of his career, when he was first learning about biochemistry and science. He had an interest in things spiritual as well, mostly magic.

Chloe asked if he practiced Wicca.

“My belief system is far older than that,” he said. “And darker. Wicca is about the harvesting the power of spirit that exists all around us. What I believe in has to do with blood magic.”

“Blood?” Chloe’s brow wrinkled at this unpleasant reference.

“Yes,” he said. There was a reverence, a tenderness that she didn’t understand. “Our blood is everything. It carries our genetic code, the building blocks of life. Our heritage, absolutely everything that all of our ancestors were before us. Do you know that it even carries their
memories
? Phobias cradled deeply within our psyches come from the fears that our progenitors before us had. That’s one bit of knowledge that has only been explained recently through science, but many very ancient traditions have an understanding of that. Blood holds our destruction and our redemption. Science has only begun to touch upon all the things that it is, the great power that it carries.”

“Like your research into red and white blood cells?” Chloe offered. She was far more comfortable with a discussion about science than whatever these… beliefs were that he was talking about. As a matter of fact, she wasn’t sure that she was comfortable at all. Something about the way he looked at her made her heart skip a beat. The combination of his attentive eyes and this line of conversation were unsettling.

“Yes. Like that.”

She nodded, but felt that he had some other meaning entirely. He was only circling around whatever he really meant, and somehow, he expected her to catch up. Only she wasn’t sure that what it was he hinted at would be anything pleasant to know about.

***

After dinner, Michael drove her home. Under cover of darkness she wasn’t sure if the security detail was following them again but she figured that they probably were. He wished her goodnight, and she got out of the car. Her limbs felt heavy and tired. There’d been a moment when she could have sworn he leaned in to kiss her, and then she blinked and he wasn’t even looking at her, staring straight ahead and tapping the steering wheel.

Upstairs, her apartment was still and quiet. She turned on the lights and then went around closing the windows and pulling the drapes shut, as she had left them open during the warmth of the day. Chloe looked down on the street and saw that Michael’s black sedan was there. She sat down on her couch and tried to calm the pounding in her temples. She got up and checked the street after ten minutes passed. The car was still there, and she watched as he finally pulled away.

What is it with him?
she wondered. Chloe couldn’t remember meeting any man that was so intriguing before. But his actions baffled her. She wasn’t sure if he was flirting with her half the time, or simply enjoying her company. Somehow she had the feeling that he wasn’t around many people, or at least, not people that weren’t beholden to him in some way. Even though she fell into that category too, maybe she was the new toy, so to speak. She didn’t have any one explanation for his odd behavior and that bothered the hell out of her. She believed there was always a reason for people’s actions, no matter how strange they might be. Maybe I’m looking for something that isn’t there, she thought. Maybe, she reasoned, he’s just rich and eccentric, and doesn’t follow the same rules as other people.

Chapter Six

Chloe Bishop was something of a mystery.

Very few people Michael met were actually what they seemed to be, and in her own way, she was no exception to the rule. One would think that she was a very unassuming, recent college graduate. He’d thought at first glance that she wouldn’t have much to say, that she was probably quiet, or would be overly impressed. But she was none of those things. She knew her mind and spoke it, though she wasn’t quick about offering opinions unless asked for them. What really intrigued him was that she seemed partially able to withstand his attempts at compulsion.

When she complained of a headache, he was a bit alarmed. That was her body’s way of fighting him. He’d met a few humans through the ages who were able to resist compulsion, but he could probably count that number on one hand. Humans tended to be easily influenced because most of them had a deep-seated need to please others. The fact that she could resist, even partially, meant that she had very strong will.

It also meant that he needed to tread carefully with her. Trying to force compulsion on her when she wasn’t a welcome receiver could do things to her; it could cause headaches, just as she’d had in his presence. He was able to plant a suggestion that could at least soothe that pain. But long term, if the compulsion was applied too often, it could cause problems with memory, nightmares, and even dementia. Michael would make sure to use his compulsion on her sparingly, and only when absolutely necessary. The last thing that he wanted to do was cause her any harm.

He’d carefully mined her memory during the time that they were in the restaurant, asking questions and willing her to answer with his compulsion, while also planting suggestions that would ease her pain and make her feel calm. It would be interesting to see how much of the evening she would remember when she returned to work.

Michael doubted that she would remember the kiss he gave her before they parted for the evening. That had been a very easy suggestion to plant, because she wanted to kiss him as well. And because she was willing, he also knew it would be the one thing she was least likely to remember.

Every moment of it: her taste, the way she breathed, her pulse, the warmth of her, was ingrained in his memory. Her soft, sweet, firm skin, and the feeling of his fingertips in her long hair. Michael kissed her deeply, enjoying every moment of her touch. The pleasant taste of her strawberry lip gloss lingered on his tongue. She leaned into him and put her hands flat on his chest, her warm fingertips over his heart. He wrapped his arms around her, and held her tight. The sound of her heartbeat pounded in his ears, and he had to let go of her sooner than he liked.

It was hard to separate which urge was stronger: the one to make love to her, or the need to bite into her skin, and at least take a little drink. If he consumed just a few drops of her blood, it would tie her to him. And it would help soothe his desire to have sex, for a while at least. As much as he wanted to, he stopped himself. He was determined that he would make her his. Just, not quite yet.

It might have been crazy for him to even expect, but he was looking forward to the time when she would come to him completely of her own free will. She already wanted his kiss. Maybe with a little more time and proximity, and she would come to want more from him. He sat in his car and waited while Chloe went inside and locked her door. He saw her moving from window to window, closing them as she went, pulling the draperies closed. Disappearing behind the glass for a time, he was still close enough to sense her presence, which to him, felt like warmth and light, even with the distance between them. He smiled when she appeared in the window a few moments later. Maybe she felt him too.

“Goodnight, darling,” he whispered, and pulled his car away from the curb.

Back home in his penthouse, Michael stripped, and climbed naked into bed.

Before he had the first dosage of Emerson’s serum, he was unable to dream. Though vampires slept, they did not dream. In those early days of taking the injection, not only did Michael have very vivid dreams, but nightmares. During the day, he didn’t think about the lives that he had taken to sustain his, the horrors that he’d both seen and experienced. At night, those memories were waiting for him. This was a side effect that lessened for him over time, but never completely went away.

Emerson claimed that this was a reaction that none of the others who took the serum reported to him. He wasn’t sure if that were actually the case, or if the man was lying. Who knew what he asked his other subjects? The doctor was thorough, but Michael had never gone so far as to poke into his study to find out exactly how he came to some of his conclusions. The man supplied results, and that was truly all that he cared about.

And some of his “patients” might not be telling the doctor the entire truth, either. Vampires weren’t a breed known for honesty, and certainly most would refuse to admit any form or weakness. Sharla was one of the serum’s recipients, and he knew that she wasn’t fessing up to any such thing.

On this night, he was able to drift to sleep easily, and when his dreams came, he found himself in Chloe’s arms.

Chapter 7

The next morning was a Saturday, and Chloe was looking forward to sleeping in. There were a couple of television shows that she was looking forward to binge watching, and really she was hoping to spend most of the day in bed, in her pajamas. She purposely left her cell phone on the couch in her living room, hoping not to be disturbed. Since she wasn’t up until noon anyway, breakfast was a cheeseburger and fries from the local burger joint that delivered. She was just finishing her meal (and the second episode of
The Creeping Dead
out of the five she needed to catch up on) when there was a knock at her door.

Pausing, with a french fry in hand, Chloe looked toward the door and waited. She wasn’t expecting anyone, and all of her friends knew better than to drop by without a call or even a two word text. She didn’t make it a habit to open the door if she weren’t expecting company. Despite the fact that she lived in a decent neighborhood, it was still the big city, and bad things did happen sometimes.

“Shit,” she whispered under her breath.

She went into the living room, but still didn’t answer the door. Walking on tiptoe, she made her way over to her handbag and pulled out her cell phone. Her screen showed five missed calls from an unidentified number. She had an idea of who that might be.

“No, he wouldn’t,” she said aloud.

There was another knock on the door, this time more aggressive than the first.

“Chloe,” came a voice. “It’s Michael.”

“One moment!” she called cheerfully. She ran back to her bedroom and pulled off her pajamas, changing into jeans and throwing a sweater over her tank top, all the while cussing her boss out.

“Michael,” she grinned when she came to the door. “What can I do for you?”

He was leaning in the doorway. Today he was wearing jeans and a gray t-shirt, and white sneakers. His dark, wavy hair was slicked back, but seemed to be curling around the ends, fighting against whatever product he’d used on it. His blue eyes warmed when they lit upon her. Michael was just handsome enough that it was almost impossible to remain angry at him for showing up unannounced.
Almost
.

“Oh, it’s more about what I can do for you,” he said. “May I come in?”

“Of course,” Chloe said, stepping back. “I warn you though, I was not expecting company.” She caught a whiff of soap and aftershave, and for an extra moment too long, she stood there and inhaled the scent.

He smiled. “Not to worry. I came to see you, not your house,” he said, taking a seat on her couch. He stretched his arm across the back of the chair, and crossed his legs. For a guest, he looked very damn comfortable.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked.

“No, I’m fine. How’s your head?” he asked. “I was rather concerned about you last night.”

Chloe felt herself blushing. The last thing she needed was for this man to believe that she was ill and somehow unable to do her job. “Oh, it was nothing that a good night’s rest couldn’t take care of, apparently,” she said.

“I’m relieved then,” he said, and seemed genuinely so. “There was something business-related that I wanted to do with you today, but seeing as you’ve already had a very early start of it, I’d understand if you didn’t feel like doing anything today. The only problem is that if we try to do this within a week, I can’t be sure they’ll have your dress ready.”

“Dress?”

“Yes,” he smiled at her. “I am going to a charity ball next Saturday, and I would very much like to have you accompany me,” he said. “It will be all on the clock for you and strictly business, and I would be pleased if you would.”

“Well, of course,” Chloe said. What woman in her right mind could refuse that offer?

***

Rachel’s
was a dress shop that Chloe had heard of, but had never been inside. She was pretty sure she’d seen them on local television when they were spotlighted as one of the best establishments in town, but she’d only paid half attention, because it was far outside of the realm of her expenses. Not only was Michael footing the bill, but she was nervous because he also wanted to sit and watch as she walked past the mirrors in each dress that she tried on. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

Obviously he wanted her to reflect a certain image, and, if he was going to be paying for it, then obviously he had the right to have a say so as to which one she would pick. The shop’s owner and namesake, a diminutive woman in high heels and silver hair pulled into a tight bun, flitted around the two of them like a proverbial butterfly, making suggestions and asking Chloe about what she liked. Michael sat back and watched this spectacle with a glass of wine and a look of amusement on his face.

“Something bold would be nice,” Michael said to Rachel. “Chloe, what do you think? I don’t know if you’ve ever been to one of these things before, but you’ll want to stand out.”

“Is there some particular reason for that? For me needing to stand out?”

Chloe caught the shopkeeper pursing her lips at that reply.

“Can we have a moment, please?” he asked.

“Sure,” Rachel said cheerily, and was out the door.

Michael came to stand beside her. “I don’t really do public engagements, but this one I have to do. And if you really want to know, I do think that you’re a beautiful woman, and I’d love to have you on my arm. I know that as my employee that I am not supposed to think feel that way,” he added. “I know how to keep a respectful distance, if that is what you want.”

“First, thanks for the compliment. Secondly, respectful distance is fine as long as we both get the chance to define what that is. And third, I haven’t been to a ball, but I do have a pretty good idea of what that entails. How about you let me and Rachel do our thing, and once we narrow it down to a few choices you get the final say? I realize this is your money that you’re spending, but all you’re going to do is make me nervous.”

“That’s a reasonable request,” he said. “I’ll be in the car.”

He went away rather easily, and she was a little disappointed once he was gone, but she’d been as honest with him as she could afford to be. He was her boss, but she’d be lying to herself if she pretended that she wasn’t attracted to him.

Rachel came back in short order, weighed down with several dresses that she wanted Chloe to try. “My dear, you sent him to go sit in the car?” she asked with a chuckle. “That’s the first time that has ever happened.”

“He brings a lot of women here?” Chloe asked.

“He has brought young ladies here on occasion, though I haven’t seen him come in for maybe a year or so. I just say that because I know he likes to see his lady in a pretty dress,” she said. “I do hope I haven’t misspoken.”

“Not at all,” Chloe said. “I’m just his assistant.”

“Sweetheart,” Rachel said. “As if that should even matter. You can find another job, anywhere, anytime. But a man like that. How often is that opportunity going to come around? I saw the way he looks at you.”

***

Michael stepped out onto the street, and was immediately aware of eyes watching him.

He looked upwards, toward the buildings across the street, frowning against the sunlight. It was human, not vampire. Vampires often compulsed humans to do their bidding in the daytime. He scanned the rooftops for movement, for a figure, and found none. As his eyes continued to scan the windows, he saw a movement behind dark glass. It was too far even for his eyes to distinguish anything else other than it was a male who turned and ran.

Michael ran into the building, foregoing the elevators, went for the stairs. With his speed he could be up to the twenty-fifth story, the window where he had seen the stalker.

Bursting into an empty lobby area, he heard the elevator doors sliding closed, filled with office workers. Michael picked up on the scent of fear, and locked in on the eyes of a man. He was a blond, thin built and unassuming. He looked young, no more than twenty-two by Michael’s guess. Racing back toward the stairs, Michael ran to the first floor. He was waiting patiently when the elevator doors slid open.

As the man walked past, Michael grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and said loudly, “My friend, there you are! I have been wondering where you’d gone off to.”

The blond twitched. “I don’t...”

Michael looked directly at him, and worked his compulsion over the man. His body eased, and Michael let his hands drop away. “We’re going to go into that coffee shop over there and have a conversation, you and I,” he said. “We’re old friends. You can call me Mike.”

“So Mike, what have you been up to lately?” the man asked. Michael caught a trace of his accent. The young man was Australian.

“Your name again, my friend?” Michael asked softly.

“Quinn,” he said, “Quinn Masterson.”

As they waited in line at the coffee shop, Michael had time to get a good look at his quarry. Quinn was overly thin, and his clothes hung off his body. Not in the way of the young hip hop crowd, but his clothes were baggy on him in places where they shouldn’t have been, like his knees and elbows. His worn leather jacket came down over his elbows to rest at heels of his palms.

He was clean, and Michael thanked the powers that be for that, because he might have had to slit the man’s throat right then and there if he’d had to endure bodily odor. His faded blue jeans were held up by an old, braided leather belt that looked like something a man four times his age would wear.

Michael instructed him to order his favorite coffee and as much as he wanted to eat. He ordered a turkey sandwich, a fruit and cheese tray, and five lady fingers.

As they sat down together, Michael took a nervous look across the street. This building had a good vantage point of the dress shop. It seemed like something that had been set up in advance, though he couldn’t figure how. This particular outing hadn’t been on his calendar, and Chloe hadn’t known about it ahead of time either. Quinn had followed Chloe. But this couldn’t be just about her.

“Who told you to follow Chloe here?” he asked.

“I don’t know him. He gave me these clothes. Said there would be food and money in it for me once I came back with information.”

“How long have you been following her?”

“A couple days.”

“When did you first see her?”

“Walking outside the headquarters of Dreas Pharmaceuticals.”

“The man who hired you. What did he ask you to do specifically?”

Quinn looked at him, and his sense of confusion was so strong that for a moment, he looked like a zombie. Whomever was controlling him had been using compulsion, that was for sure, and now his mind was struggling to understand and keep up with competing messages from two different beings that easily controlled him.

“To watch the girl. Don’t get too close. Don’t let Michael Andreas see me. And if I saw
him
, even from far away, if he looked in my direction, I was supposed to run.”

Michael gave him a big, toothy grin, flashing his canines. “What you will tell the vampire is that you saw Chloe, but she was with me, so as instructed, you ran. I did not catch you. We did not talk. I seemed concerned only with my young woman, but you ran as soon as you laid eyes on me. Understand?

You won’t remember anything at all since the time that you stepped out of the elevator. When I get up and leave, you will sit here and finish your food. And then you’ll go back to the vampire and tell him exactly what I have instructed you to say.”

“Exactly as you instructed,” Quinn repeated.

“Good boy.” Michael grinned. He reached into his pocket and grabbed his cell phone. “Smile for the camera.”

Quinn did just as he was told, and for a spare instant, he almost felt sorry for the young man. Not quite.

“What are you doing here? In the States, I mean?” he asked.

“Moved here from Melbourne when I was a kid. I went to high school with Chloe. When my parents were killed, I went to live with my aunt and uncle in California. I haven’t been back in town long, you know.”

“Killed?” He felt a chill along the back of his neck. “How were your parents killed?”

“It’s the damndest thing. We’re told it was a serial killer that got them, though no one knows why. Apparently, the bastard stalked them for weeks. Drained them both of every last drop of blood after breaking their necks. It was awful. Never caught the fucker who did it. I’d like a piece of them, if I could find out who it was.”

“Why weren’t you killed?”

“Probably would have been, if I had been home that night,” Quinn said. “I was at Chloe’s house studying for midterms.”

“Have you seen or spoken to Chloe since?”

“No,” Quinn replied. “I was instructed not to approach her.”