Negative Space Ch. 07

"Oh, excuse me, is there something you wanted?" I asked, worried that I was supposed to tip him.

"Well, ma'am, I was wondering if you'd like me to wait for you."

"Oh, no, Michael, I can walk home on my own. I'll keep a guard with me. Thank you, though." Michael seemed relieved and thanked me before driving off. I liked his earnest bearing. I decided to ask that he always be my driver. I marched into the building nodding to Megan and heading straight up. When I arrived at my office, though, the door was unlocked. I opened the door carefully and peeked my head in. A couple lights were on in the back, and I nervously pulled the cellphone out of my pocket. I flipped to the number of the guard I'd left downstairs, and held my finger on the call button. I closed the door quietly, and moved down the hallway through the semi-dark, watching my footing in the lights of other office buildings shining through the floor to ceiling windows. I came upon the door to the exam room and pressed it with the tip of my finger, letting it creak open to show an empty room. Nothing was disturbed, so I moved to the next room, my heart beating faster and faster. No one there either. I took a deep breath and headed for the lab door, which was the only other room with a light gleaming from below it. I pushed the door open and saw nothing, stepping in as my adrenaline rushed hard in my ears. The lights were on at the far counter, where a coat was hanging over the chair and a couple notebooks were open. I walked down to look at them when some one whispered, "boo!" so close to my ear I could feel the breath. I jumped and dropped the cellphone, turning around to see Elliott laughing at me.

"Oh my god, Elliott. You scared the fuck out of me. You're lucky I didn't pee myself!" I shook my head, trying to catch my breath and stop my core from shaking. "Jesus Christ. You sure know how to scare a girl."

"Well, Dr. Crane, do you honestly think you could sneak up on a vampire? If I had been some sort of intruder, I certainly would not have simply been waiting patiently when I heard someone come into the office. I could hear your heart beating all the way out in the hallway."

I smiled. "It's true, there is nothing I can do about that pesky heart of mine. But it serves me well for the time being. So what are you doing here so close to dawn?"

"Well, I came back because I forgot my coat, but I realized that no one had gone over the medical store charts, so I was just making sure we had everything we'd need."

"Thank you! That's fantastic. I knew I hired you for a reason," I said, smiling, but caught myself thinking about his lips, which looked so soft in this sparsely lit room. He smiled in turn, and casually stepped closer to me so he could lean on the counter-top.

"Well, someone has to do it. And since I'm the only one around here with any brains, I figured it should be me." He grinned now, and I felt a little rush of lightheadedness as he bared his fangs. A few weeks ago something like that would have sent me running, but now the sight of fangs inspired an almost Pavlovian response. All I could think about was the overwhelming orgasms I experienced regularly as Theo's fangs sunk into my flesh. I blushed, and Elliott's eyes caught fire. I bent over to pick up the cellphone I had dropped, and when I stood up again, Elliott was only a foot away from me. I took a deep breath, and smelled the clean smell of aftershave and shaving cream.

"Well, I just came back here to run a few tests. I did a house-call tonight and I have no idea what to do about the patient," I said quickly. I pushed past him, reeling when I accidentally bumped his skin with my elbow. My previously boring, purely functional elbow suddenly became a fire of sexual attraction. I could feel the skin there yearning to come back into contact with his, and it went straight to my core. I pushed forward, not bothering to look back to catch the look I knew would be on his face. I went out into the hallway to grab the bag I had dropped there, and brought it back into the lab. I pulled out the samples and without even looking at Elliott I began making slides to look at under the microscope. I moved slightly and bumped into Elliott who was suddenly right behind me. I took a deep breath and turned to face him. I glanced accidentally at his fangs and noticed that they were only inches from me. He winked. I closed my eyes and mentally shook myself.

"Okay, buddy. If you want to help you can get another microscope out and boot up the computer so we can begin running tests. This sample is from a wound on our patients chest that seems to be deteriorating just like a fungal infection, but it shows no cause." I went on, and Elliott just smiled at me, but did as I said, and began working. At around 5:45 AM he looked at the clock and shook his head.

"Shit. I should have been out of here by now. I won't make it home in time to lock myself in." There were no windows in the lab, but the door was open and I could see the waiting room down the hallway beginning to go grey with the dawn.

"You'll have to stay here then. I'll close up the curtains and set you up with a cot, but I expect you to keep working for at least a few more hours."

Elliott smiled and bowed facetiously. "Certainly, milady." I scoffed and marched out of the room, pulling huge, light-blocking curtains across the whole of the waiting room. I pulled curtains across the entrance hallway and the hallway leading back to the lab. In the store closet I found the cot we had ordered precisely for this purpose, and rolled it back into the lab. There was space on one side of the room, so I pushed a few boxes out of the way and set up the cot. As I bent over to put sheets over it I could feel the burn of Elliott's eyes on my ass and the tingle of his mental fingers moving through my thoughts. I pushed them out, hard and fast, and spun around to face him.

"I can tolerate you looking at my ass and crowding my personal space, I can tolerate your flippant tone and disrespectful manner. But you may not EVER go through my thoughts again. Do you hear me?" Elliott looked shocked, but nodded respectfully and turned back to the computer. I felt bad for snapping at him, but there was a clear disadvantage to being a human surrounded by vampires, and if all I had was my privacy, then I was going to cling to it. I walked over to see what he was working on, and leaned over his shoulder to peer into the microscope. My body tightened as I looked through and Elliott's hand accidentally caught mine as we both reached for the dial that moved the slide left to right. He held on, guiding my hand to the dial and turned it to show me the suspicious changes in cellular pattern. He talked low and placed his other hand on my back. I stood up quickly from the microscope and pulled my hand away from his. My blood began pounding with nerves though, just knowing that he could hear it, and could tell how turned on I was by his touch. His hand slipped from my back, grazing the curves of my ass and it fell to his lap.

"Well, what do you think about it then?" I asked, trying everything I could not to imagine those hands grabbing my hips and grinding them into his.

"Well, it's highly irregular. I compared it with a sample I took from my own flesh while you were outside," he turned up his arm and showed me the small silver burn on the inside of his forearm. I took his arm with my hands, holding it still to see the incision. He had done well, taking only flesh with the same consistency of Helena's wound. His incision was still smoldering a little, so I grabbed for a cotton swab and a vial of a chemical solution I had put together that worked to counteract the effects of silver on vampire flesh. I dipped the swab into the vial and dabbed it gently into the puncture. Elliott sighed.

"That stuff is a miracle. If you sold it commercially you would make millions of dollars."

"I don't need to make any money, at least not right now." I had a sudden idea, and grabbed a clean test tube. "Open your mouth."

Elliott looked at me strangely, but opened his mouth. I took a deep breath and braced myself against the rush. I held his jaw in one hand, and used the other to press the tube up around his fang like I had seen done with poisonous snakes on the discovery channel. Nothing came though. I was so disappointed. I tried different angles and different pressures, but after a little bit, Elliott pulled the tube away from his mouth.

"If you don't mind me saying, Dr., it's because I'm not ready."

"What do you mean? You have performance anxiety?"

Elliott blushed. It was incredibly endearing. "No, I mean that I'm not making any vampire venom because I know that I'm not about to bite someone. In the same way that your mouth waters when you see or smell food, the coagulant fluid only comes in when I'm about to bite. Or..." Here he drifted off, blushing again.

"Or what?"

"Or when I'm turned on."

"Well can't you just imagine that you're about to bite me?"

"Well I can, and I have," he said bringing his hands up to wrap around my waist. "But imagination simply isn't doing it." His hands were surprisingly warm, and I felt their heat melting through the cotton of my shirt. I swallowed deeply, feeling a rush of desire flooding my body.

"Eh-excuse me, Elliott..." I started, meaning to scold him, but he leaned forward and brought his lips to the edge of my shirt where a slice of skin showed above my pants. My words caught in my throat and I stammered, closing my eyes to try to gain control of the lust and lightheadedness swirling through my body. He nudged the shirt higher with his nose and pulled my hips in towards his parted lips. I felt his tongue gliding down my hipbone and it turned into a a river of sensation, the tension and lust I had been feeling all night poured through my body and down to where his tongue now lingered, suspiciously close to my pants button.

"What were you saying?" Elliott asked, his warm breath spreading across my bare flesh, giving me chills. I was silent, focusing on slowing down my breathing, and Elliott smiled. Letting go of my hips and leaning away from me, he took the vial out of my hand and pressed it up around his now elongated fangs. I watched as if in a daze, and sure enough, a slow trickle of clear fluid filled the test tube. He popped a cork in it, filling a second one from his other fang. He handed them to me, and I shook my head quickly, blushing under his steady gaze.

"I'm getting back to work. You can as well, if you'd like, but if not, the cot is all set up." I turned away briskly, taking the shimmering vials of vampire venom and carrying them over to the part of the lab I had been working on earlier. I heard Elliott's quiet chuckle as he stood up and scooped his papers together.

"Here are the notes I took on analyzing the differences between the wound flesh and my own. Ideally you would check with a couple other vampires as well, just to make sure I'm not the one who's highly irregular, but you can find my conclusion there anyway." He handed my the sheaf of papers and I nodded, caught momentarily by Elliott's blue green eyes and long, dark lashes. I imagined how they would feel, lightly brushing my cheek--the tingling it would send flying through my body--fuck! I thought, noticing Elliott's distinct smirk.