I did not, in fact, anticipate that spoon-feeding a vampire would be on today's to-do list.
Yet there I stood—lab coat wrinkled, clipboard tucked under one arm, and an array of color-coded gelatin samples laid out on the sterile metal tray in front of me—watching Vincent Monreau sniff a fluorescent green cube like it had just insulted his ancestors.
"Is this… lime?" he asked, his voice deeply suspicious.
"It's green apple," I corrected. "You're the one who said your taste receptors are more nuanced than humans. This is a test of those receptors, not a buffet."
Vincent raised a brow. "Are you sure this isn't punishment for what happened during the stool sample experiment?"
My pen snapped in half.
"I told you," I said through gritted teeth, "it was an accident. A tragic, side-effect-induced accident. And let's not forget who refused to wear the adult diaper."
"I have my dignity," he replied, lips twitching with amusement.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and counted to three. Then ten. "Let's begin, shall we?"
He lounged back in the reclined testing chair, the kind usually reserved for dental patients or sci-fi movies. Tattoos curled like shadows along his forearms and crept up his collarbone, peeking through the neckline of the standard black testing shirt I insisted on—purely professional, of course. And definitely not because I found the occasional glimpse of ink distracting.
"Sample A1," I said, picking up a blue square with lab tongs. "What do you taste?"
Vincent's tongue flicked out catlike, snagging the sample from the tongs without breaking eye contact.
Why was that hot?
He chewed slowly, thoughtfully. "Blue raspberry. Artificial. Slightly metallic aftertaste."
"Correct on the first. Metallic might be the flavor strip's base."
"Or sabotage," he muttered under his breath.
I ignored him.
We moved on to Sample A2, then A3. He nailed them all—black cherry, lychee, elderflower (because I had flair)—until we hit A7.
He licked the orange square. He blinked. He coughed.
"This tastes like regret," he choked.
I glanced at my notes. "That would be bitter melon."
He reached for the nearest beaker and downed the water like he was washing away trauma. "Why would anyone willingly consume that?"
"For science," I said brightly.
He looked at me, water dripping from his chin, mouth twisted in betrayal. "You know, in some cultures, poisoning your vampire test subject is grounds for war."
"In some cultures, vampires don't sass their scientists."
"In mine, we do."
He grinned, sharp and devastating, and for a moment I forgot how to breathe.
---
"Alright," I said an hour later, flipping the clipboard to a new page, "time for the blindfolded portion."
Vincent arched a brow. "This is sounding increasingly like a date."
"It's a controlled test of sensory overlap and flavor identification. Not a date."
He smirked. "If you say so, Doctor Quinn."
I glared at him but handed him the blindfold anyway.
He tied it around his head with surprising elegance. "I'm ready. Feed me."
Oh no.
I faltered. The tray clattered slightly as I set it down beside him.
This was fine. Totally normal. Feeding blindfolded genetically unique vampire men in your high-security underground lab was all in a day's work.
I picked up a spoon and dipped it into the first sample—a silky chocolate mousse laced with just a hint of iron. A synthetic blood-based dessert, meant to test flavor masking and palatability.
"Open," I ordered.
To my everlasting regret, he did. Slowly. Smirking the entire time.
I slipped the spoon in, very much not thinking about anything remotely erotic. Or sensual. Or mouth-related.
He hummed as he tasted it. "Chocolate. With… a mineral undertone. Almost like blood, but not as sharp."
I scribbled notes. "That's correct. That undertone is the synthetic blend."
"You trying to trick me into enjoying fake blood, Doctor?"
"Trying to make you more marketable to the biotech world, actually."
He chuckled, low and warm. "And here I thought you just wanted to keep me longer."
My pen stopped mid-word.
"Excuse me?"
"You know," he said, tapping the blindfold like it was a crown, "the endless testing. The quality time. The suspicious lack of other vampire participants."
"I haven't approved any others yet," I said stiffly. "You're the only one who scored high enough on the compatibility screening."
"And yet," he murmured, lips curling, "I feel like there's a personal investment here."
"Only in the data," I lied.
---
When the testing concluded, I expected Vincent to retreat to his containment suite and I could go back to pretending he wasn't alarmingly attractive and slightly deranged.
Instead, he leaned casually against the counter while I documented the results, sipping water like he hadn't just eaten twenty-four flavor bombs and flustered me half to death.
"You know," he said, "if you're going to keep testing my taste buds, we should try a real-world comparison."
I looked up. "Real-world?"
"Take me to a bakery," he said. "Let me try human-made desserts. See how they stack up against your scientific concoctions."
I narrowed my eyes. "You just want cake."
"I want context," he said innocently.
I rolled my eyes. "You're not cleared to leave the lab unsupervised."
"You can supervise me," he said, far too easily.
"Vincent—"
He held up his hands. "Fine. Put it on the to-do list. But if you're serious about understanding my kind's sensory profile, field testing is inevitable."
I hated that he had a point.
And I hated that the idea of watching him eat cake in a café like a normal person gave me butterflies.
---
Later that night, I reviewed the footage. The slow-motion clip of him tasting the bitter melon and recoiling in sheer horror was going straight into the vault of joy. Possibly even my screensaver.
But beneath the laughter and the ridiculousness, something unsettled me. A thread of awareness I couldn't shake.
Vincent had signed up for this program voluntarily. Every test was approved. Every reaction documented.
But something about the way he watched me—really watched me—suggested he wasn't just here for the science.
And I wasn't sure what scared me more.
The possibility he had a hidden agenda.
Or the possibility that I wanted him to stay anyway.