First Love: A Superbundle Boxed Set of Seven New Adult Romances (67 page)

"I thought you knew," he said. “I wanted...” He opened his mouth and then closed it with a sigh. “I don’t know what I wanted.”

She swallowed hard.

"I need to clean up," she said. The blood was all over her body, and under Robb's jacket her skin itched with it. "I need to get dressed."

"I—yes. Of course." Robb frowned. "Liz, I'm sorry."

He reached out his hand to help her up, and she flinched instinctively. When she saw the hurt in his eyes, she regretted it. But he
had
bitten her...

"Liz, you know my secret now."

"I won't tell anyone." The words tumbled out of her mouth. "I promise."

She could see uncertainty passing across his face, but then he closed his eyes. He sighed.

"I'll be in my lab. You can shower and get dressed before you leave. Liz, I'm sorry—"

His voice cracked, and Liz wanted to go to him and comfort him. She shook off the reaction. He was right—he was a monster. He had attacked her.

"You'll unlock the door?" she asked, trying to sound brave. "So I can leave?"

"Yes," he said. "Of course."

She stood up, her legs trembling and unsteady. She held her hand against the door to keep her balance.

"Goodbye," she said firmly. He looked at her, and for an instant she thought she saw the glint of tears in his eyes. Her heart tore. This was the man who had held her in his arms, who had given her more pleasure than she'd ever known.

Then he turned away and left her alone in his apartment.

She showered quickly, running soap over her body to get rid of the blood. The hot water made clouds of steam billow up over her skin. Normally it would have relaxed her, aroused her even, but tonight she just wanted to get it over with and leave. As she washed herself Robb's face kept appearing in her mind, and her throat choked with tightness.

Even though she thought she'd gotten all of the blood, when she toweled herself off there were still streaks of red on the white towel. She threw the soiled towel in the corner of the bathroom and pulled her clothes on hurriedly. Heading out to the door of the apartment, she saw the splashes of blood all over the floor and against the doorframe. Her blood.

Her stomach turned and she pressed the back of her hand against her mouth to keep the bile down. She reached out and turned the handle of the door gingerly. The metal handle was sticky with drying blood, but Robb had told the truth—he'd left it unlocked for her.

She walked across the foyer and into the elevator quickly, glancing back to see if Robb would come out to try to talk to her. Part of her wanted him to come out, to explain more about what he was, about how this all had happened. Her curiosity flared, and her heart ached, but her body was tense with fear at the thought.

The lab door was closed, but it wasn't until the elevator doors had slid shut that she breathed a sigh of relief. Relief...and, too, disappointment.

"It's over, Liz," she said to herself, her jaw clenched. "It's okay. It's all over now."

The security guard waved slightly to her as she left, but she did not trust herself to even meet his eyes. Did he know? No. Nobody knew. Nobody except her. The secret of Robb's existence weighed on her mind. She escaped out onto the street and walked quickly down the sidewalk.

The rain was falling, but it was not the rain she was used to. The rain in London was cold, misty. The dampness worked its way inside her coat easily and she shivered. Her fingers felt sticky, and she looked down. It was the dried blood from the door handle. Her fingers were red.

She held her hands up, cupping them to try and catch the rain. The tips of her fingers went numb with the cold, but she didn't care. She needed to get it all off. Every bit. Every spot.

A car pulled up next to her on the road. She thought for a moment that it was Robb, and she turned quickly before realizing that it was only a cab.

"Ride, miss?" the driver said.

Liz got in, stuffing her hands into her pockets so that he couldn't see if there was any blood left on her hands. Her fingers were still a bit sticky with it, the webbed part of her palm still cracked with the dried stuff. She itched.

"The call said you'd be somewhere down this street. Don't know why you're walking in weather like this, I'da been happy to pick you up at your apartment."

Liz was silent. Robb had called the cab for her. Of course.

"Where to?" the driver said.

Liz thought about going back to her apartment. Facing Jenny. She would ask what had happened. What on earth could Liz even say to her?
Hey, Jenny, you know that handsome rich guy who's running our lab? Yeah, he's a vampire.

Tears welled in her eyes and she pressed her hand to her wrist where it had been cut, feeling the puckered and healed skin. If it hadn't been for that, she would have thought that the events of the night had just been some kind of dream.

"Miss?" The cab driver adjusted his rearview mirror.

"The university," Liz said abruptly. She leaned back in her seat as the taxi pulled away from the curb. Against the car window, the raindrops ran slanted, the wind beating the streams of water sideways. It was good. She was moving. Getting away. Running away from this nightmare.

At the university she thanked the cab driver, who drove away before she could pay. She supposed Robb had paid already for her.

Her feet took her to the chemistry building. There were only a couple of students in the hallways, late night studiers, and they ignored her as she walked by, dripping wet. When she finally got to the chemistry lab, she flicked on the lights and shut the door behind her.

Her body slumped against the wall and she burst into tears. Her legs gave way and she let herself slide down to the floor, her face buried in her arms. She sobbed until her chest felt hollow and she could not breathe, and her tears ran dry and every gasp of breath was ragged. She cried for Robb, yes, but also for herself, pitying herself as a girl who would fall so easily for a monster. She cried for Cori, the sister she could never bring back, no matter how much research she did.

Finally she was done. She looked down and saw her hands shaking slightly, still stained in the fingernails with blood. She stood up, leaning unsteadily on the lab counter, and made her way to the sink.

Hot water. Yes. That was the best. Scalding water that would take away every bit of this nightmare. She scrubbed and scrubbed with the wire brush, scrubbed until she realized that the blood on her nails was fresh, caused by the scrubbing. Then she rinsed her hands, dried them, blotting the tissues pink on her wet skin.

She knew what she had to do.

Her fingers still trembled, but she found a pen and piece of paper and wrote the letter to Robb telling him that she was leaving the university and going back to America. He would find out soon enough, and he would understand that she meant to keep his secret. Jenny would get a new lab partner. And Liz—

She would be fine. She could take a year off, travel the world like she'd meant to do before. She could come back to school later—after all, she'd gotten a ton of offers from universities. It didn't have to be this one. It didn't have to be Robb.

But it was him. Him. He was the one for me.

Liz shook her head to rid herself of the unwanted thoughts. Robb was simply the first guy to come along and steal her heart. There would be others. She was sure of it. Others who were better suited to her—less passionate, more intellectual.

They won't be good for you. Not like he was.

"You don't know that," Liz said aloud. She realized that she had crumpled the paper up slightly with her fingers on the table. Smoothing it out, she steeled herself and turned to leave.

Outside the downpour had stopped, and the only signs that it had rained were the puddles in the streets. They glinted and flashed the reflections of the city lights as she moved among them, walking away from what she had once thought would be her future.

Chapter Nineteen

"I don't need you here."

"Sir—"

"Just go! Take the day off!" Robb paced across the living room.

"I'm concerned about you, sir," Gerry said, clasping his hands in front of him.

"Why?" Robb flung himself down on the living room couch and pressed his palms to his eyelids. He wanted the world to go away.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," Gerry said. "Apart from the bloodstained sheets, the bloodstained carpet, and the bloodstained door, everything seems absolutely normal, sir. Shall I get you some more tea?"

"It's not a problem. I'll take care of it."

"The tea or the blood?"

Robb threw an acid look towards his butler.

"Both," he said.

"What cleaners will you call?" Gerry asked.

"Excuse me?" Robb said. He had been pacing the room all night and he was tired. Too tired to deal with any of this. He wanted it to be done. He wanted to talk with Liz again. To hold her. He'd found her, and touched her, and his curse had won. It would never leave him alone. He would never find happiness.

His phone rang again.

Thad
. He turned off the ringer and let out a deep breath. His hand trembled as he put the phone down.

"The cleaners, sir," Gerry said gently. "They can't be local. You have to switch out the apartment numbers so they've no idea whose place this is. You'll have to—"

"Okay, okay," Robb said. His head was pounding. "You take care of it."

"As soon as you tell me what happened," Gerry said. "Sir, if you're in trouble—"

"It's the girl."

Gerry's face turned pale, and Robb realized how the situation looked.

"She's fine," he hurried to explain. "Things went...wrong, but I healed her. She's fine. Everything's fine."

"Does she know? About you?"

"It's alright. I've taken care of it. It's all fine." His phone rang again. "Dammit, Thad!"

"Perhaps you should be the one to take the day off, sir."

Robb looked down at his phone. Thad must need him urgently. He wanted to throw the old vampire off of a bridge.

"That sounds like a good idea," Robb said. Gerry looked at him with disbelief.

"I'll take the day off. You deal with...ah, with all this," Robb said, motioning to the carpet but not looking at it.

"Very well, sir," Gerry said. He looked around and set his shoulders square. "I'll take care of it, sir."

"Thanks, Gerry," Robb said. He put his hand on Gerry's shoulder and was surprised to see his butler flinch at the touch. It was a split-second reaction, imperceptible to human eyes perhaps, but Robb caught it. It made him stop in his tracks.

"Of course, sir," Gerry said, moving briskly to the kitchen, where he began pulling out cleaning supplies from a closet Robb didn't even remember he had.

"I'll be back later," Robb said.

He took the elevator down, not to the lobby but to his private garage. Gerry's reaction had shaken him, and as he walked to his car he found himself in a darker mood than ever. With his terrible mistake, he had driven everyone away from him, even the ones most dear to him.

He
was
a monster to everyone.

His phone rang again, and this time he answered it.

"What the hell do you want, Thad? This better be important."

"Come to the spot. Now."

"Why?"

"Just come. I need you
now
."

The phone went dead in his hand. Robb wanted to throw it against the wall. He wanted to get into his car and drive it off of a cliff, not that it would do any good. He couldn't die, not that easily.

"Fine," he grumbled. "Great." He got into the car and turned on the radio loudly. The rock blasted all of the thoughts out of his head, and as he drove out of the parking garage and turned onto the road that would get him outside London, he let his mind tune out and be carried away by the shrill notes, the pounding of the drums that drowned out his heartbeat completely.

***

"A dead body?"

"It's in the trunk of the rental car."

"Thad,
why
?"

Robb rubbed his temples with his fingers. His head was throbbing. Above him in the trees, birds chirped happily, unaware of the two monsters below them.

"Why? Because we needed a body that looked like me."

Thad's eyes were wild, red-rimmed, darting around. He couldn't keep Robb's gaze for more than an instant before flicking his attention elsewhere. He was like a hungry animal, ready to attack should any prey arrive in his path. His hair had turned almost completely white and stuck up from his head, unbrushed. His lips were cracked from lack of blood and from Thad continually licking them.

"Vasin would have provided a body," Robb said. He didn't know how this had gotten so out of hand.

"I want this to go off without a hitch," Thad said.

"Then let me do it my way!"

Robb's voice rang out in the middle of the forest, and Thad peered up at him suspiciously, his tongue darting out to wet his lips again.

"Fine. From here on out. Your way. I promise. But you have to take the car."

"With the body in it?"

Robb glanced over at the white sedan. There was someone in the trunk, a dead man. He didn't know how Thad had come across a dead body—whether he'd stolen it, or killed a random passerby on the street. Dead bodies had never given him the creeps before, not after what the vampires had done to him. And yet, now, shivers ran up his spine.

"I can't keep this in my car," Thad said. "If I got caught—"

"You shouldn't have a dead body to begin with," Robb said. He thought for a moment. "I'll drive it out to my cabin outside of Oxford. You can go pick it up on the day we do it."

"We have to do it tonight."

"What
?"

"The feds are closing in." Thad wiped the back of his hand against his lips. Robb cringed to see the smear of red come away on his hand.

"How do you know?"

"I saw him following me. One of them. A suit."

"When?"

"Yesterday."

Robb's mind raced.

"Okay. Meet me at my place in an hour."

"I can ride back with you," Thad said. "I don't want to drive a dead body around."