Eternity and a Year Read online

  Above her, Brendan smiled. She caught the gleam of red on his long teeth and shuddered at the memory of them piercing her neck. He bowed his head as if he had read her thoughts and pressed his mouth against the wound he had created. He licked it, as if searching for any remaining traces of blood. The wound broke open, and a fresh trickle began. His tongue lapped against the bruise, and he thrust his hips with renewed vigour.

  It was as if the taste of blood had sent him over the edge. He squeezed Carrie tightly in his arms, pressing his mouth hard against her neck in what might have been a kiss. Wild sensations radiated up from her core, creating a sudden starburst of pleasure, and she writhed beneath him. She gasped as the clenching in her channel became rhythmic. He poured himself into her and she contracted around him, her body gripping his cock fiercely and compulsively. Their bodies were in sync now, the shockwaves of her pleasure matching his deep strokes, causing her breathing to become ragged. Her climax came upon her quickly, and she hesitated for a brief moment before surrendering, gripping Brendan’s shoulders hard and releasing a cry she was sure would stir the dust in the rafters above.

  Brendan pressed his mouth against hers—definitely a kiss this time—and her lips tingled as he moaned, sending tiny reverberations through them. It lasted for several moments and was surprisingly tender, though his mouth held a slight tang of lingering blood. His eyes remained closed, his dark lashes brushing his cheeks as he thrust faster and faster into her, pressing Carrie hard against the floorboards, causing her hips to twinge in protest at being treated so roughly against such an ill-suited surface. Just when she thought she could take it no more—that she might soon hear a soft snap signifying the breaking of some important body part—he cried out as his orgasm overtook him.

  She quivered as he withdrew, tumbling off her. Her body cried out in a mingling of lingering arousal and dull aches. She wanted to jump up from the floor at once, ensuring it would not become the location of their second reunion, and at the same time, she wanted to throw herself at him and demand more.

  “Carrie?” Brendan asked a few moments later, a hint of worry in his voice.

  She opened her eyes, which she had squeezed shut, savouring the memory of his touch while worrying about how she might next feel it. Should she expect another tender kiss…or another bite?

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you all right?” He was leaning over her now, peering down at her as if searching for signs of injury.

  “I think so.” She was a little sore, though she was reluctant to admit that to Brendan. She felt weakened in the wake of such a long-awaited release, but pleasantly so.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so rough with you. I couldn’t help it. After waiting so long and tasting your blood…”

  Carrie shook her head. “It’s all right.” She did hurt a bit, but she didn’t—couldn’t—regret it.

  Brendan took her by the shoulders and eased her into a sitting position. His eyes gleamed burgundy in the moonlight.

  “What about you?” she asked. “Is something wrong? You look…well, you look upset.” She frowned as she spoke. She was still sifting through a landslide of her own emotions, but deep down, the one that stood out the most was happiness—shocked, incredulous happiness, but happiness nonetheless. Wouldn’t—shouldn’t—Brendan feel the same?

  “Not upset,” he said, dragging a fingertip idly through the dust that was so thick on the floorboards. “Just…empty. I mean, that’s how I feel, and I don’t know why. I waited for this for so long, and I thought it would be different from the other times.”

  Carrie stared at him in numb shock. How Brendan had spent the last year was still a mystery to her—one she’d always suspected would break her heart if she ever solved it—but hearing him talk about it so casually made her feel as if her breast had been pierced by a poison-tipped arrow. Its venom began to spread and course through her veins, a potent mixture of jealousy, anger and grief.

  Brendan met her gaze with his strange, red-hued eyes. They held sadness, and the set of his mouth suggested what he said shamed him. He reached out tentatively towards Carrie and she jerked away from his touch. He sighed. “You think I’m disgusting.”

  Tears stung Carrie’s eyes again. “Yes, I do,” she snapped. “Do you have any idea what the past year has been like for me? You left me—just left, without a word—and I’ve been alone ever since. And you were here, in the same city all along—sleeping around, apparently—while I sent out notes to all our family and friends explaining the wedding was cancelled!” Her chest was heaving by the time she finished and her tears streamed freely down her face, dripping onto her bare breasts. Her cheeks flamed, the blood that rushed through her veins fuelling her anger just as efficiently as it had fuelled her lust.

  Brendan jerked back as if he’d been slapped. “Carrie, no! That’s not what I meant. I—I haven’t slept with anyone else!”

  Carrie glared incredulously at him through tear-filled eyes. “The other times?”

  “That’s not what I meant!” He reached out to take one of her hands and clung to it like a liegeman beseeching his mistress. “Some nights, though,” he said, dropping his gaze to the floor, “I fantasised about you, remembering your touch. Other nights, I dreamt of you. But when I woke—from daydreams or real dreams—I always felt so empty,” he finished in a subdued voice.

  Carrie leant forward, drawing Brendan into a fierce embrace as tears slithered down her cheeks. “Every night for the past year I’ve lain in bed and wondered where you were,” she said. “I wondered if you were dead, and if you weren’t, who you were with. Why else would you have disappeared? I thought that if you were alive, there must be someone else.”

  Brendan stroked her hair. “No,” he said, “never.”

  Carrie relaxed, allowing herself to wilt in his arms. Brendan’s explanation was a two-edged sword, filling Carrie with blessed relief and creeping worry at the same time. Empty? “Then why…” she said, “why aren’t you as happy as I am?”

  “I am, deep down.” He tangled his hand farther into her hair and pressed his lips against hers. The kiss was salty, filled with her tears. “This just doesn’t seem real, yet. I’m afraid you’re not actually here…like a dream.”

  Chapter Two

  Carrie awoke in her bed the next morning. Brendan had insisted she spend the rest of the night alone, leaving him to hunt. He’d said the taste of her blood had awakened something within him that couldn’t be ignored—the need to feed. So Carrie had reluctantly returned to her apartment and eventually fallen into a fitful sleep marked by nightmares and wet dreams alike.

  Her alarm clock woke her for work at seven the next morning, and her hips and back ached dully when she rolled over to silence it. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and climbed stiffly out of bed, the sheet slipping from her legs and pooling around her feet on the floor. She shuffled her way to the bathroom, hoping a hot shower would help to ease her achiness.

  She was halfway bent over the tub, reaching for the knob that would turn on the water, when she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. Her buttocks, angled towards the glass, bore faint traces of dusky purple where they’d been pressed against the hard floor the night before. She straightened and turned to face her reflection to find her loins were dusted with the same subdued shade from hipbone to hipbone, marking where Brendan’s body had met her own. And, of course, there were the twin wounds on the side of her neck, pinpoints rimmed with dried blood that she could see if she tilted her head a little. There were no illusions for her of last night being only a dream. Carrie hoped Brendan felt as reassured as she did.

  She climbed carefully into the shower and stood in the spray of hot water, letting it wash away a few flecks of dried blood from her neck as she breathed in the steam it produced. When she finally shut off the flow, she didn’t want to step out, not so soon. If only she didn’t have to go to work, she thought. It would be agony—outfitting mannequins, dealing with customers and running the cash r
egister all day while she ached with stiffness and bruises and—most of all—the desire to have Brendan’s arms around her again. Nighttime was such a long while away, but Brendan had insisted she must wait until then to see him next. He’d promised to come to her apartment after dusk. Carrie shivered, half with delight at the thought of having him in her bed—their bed—again and half out of an eerie sense of incredulity at the memory of his blood-smeared mouth and his eyes of a similar shade, gone wide with lust.

  He was a vampire. Even as she thought it, she had to suppress the urge to scoff at herself. A vampire? Even seriously considering his claim had to be ridiculous. But his fangs had pierced her neck and her blood had surged into his mouth. If that didn’t make him a vampire, then what did it make him?

  * * * *

  Carrie was panting lightly by the time she arrived home late that afternoon. She had hurried there from work, eager to prepare herself for Brendan’s arrival. She wanted everything to be perfect. She hastened to her bedroom and unknotted the scarf she’d worn around her neck to hide the twin wounds Brendan had given her, throwing it unceremoniously into the laundry hamper—the thing had been driving her crazy all day, making her sweat slightly as it rubbed uncomfortably against her bite. Her clothing had hidden the rest of the evidence of their reunion, but she’d winced a couple of times when she’d bumped her hip on the counter.

  The first thing she did after ridding herself of the scarf was to take out the trash. She didn’t want Brendan to see the empty bottles that lay discarded inside. It was embarrassing now that he had returned, but the impending anniversary of his disappearance had driven her to empty quite a few of the glass containers in an effort to numb the pain. The heady aromas of various amber liquids that rose from the trash bag as she tied it shut conjured up hazy memories of not-quite oblivion that had shaved the edges off her loneliness and replaced them with a deep sleep, the dreams of which she was never able to remember.

  After the garbage had been taken outside and the can lined with a fresh bag—lemon-scented to help cover any remaining alcohol fumes—Carrie turned to the counter, where a tiny, red light on her answering machine was blinking regularly.

  “This is Deborah,” a familiar voice said brusquely when Carrie hit the play button. “It’s been a year now, so I thought—”

  Carrie punched the delete button firmly. The fact that it was the anniversary of Brendan’s disappearance had certainly not been lost on his mother. She, along with several other members of Brendan’s family, had been bombarding Carrie with phone calls that bordered on harassment for the past year, trying to bully the information they thought she had out of her. But she had been left just as much in the dark as they had when Brendan had disappeared, and each one of their thinly-veiled accusations hurt like a knife through the heart.

  After deleting two more similar messages without listening past the first few words, Carrie drifted down the hallway to her bedroom where the queen-sized bed she’d shared with Brendan took up most of the space. A dresser—some of the drawers still filled with Brendan’s clothing—stood to the right of the bed. A black and white picture was displayed prominently on top. It was her favourite from the engagement photo session they’d posed for together only a couple of months before his disappearance. In it, Brendan smiled down at Carrie, who beamed up at him, her arms wrapped around his waist. Their gazes were locked, and although the picture was devoid of colour, the soft shade of his eyes was markedly different from the dark burgundy she had seen the night before. His eye teeth were shorter, too, and he looked happy—very happy, in fact, not at all like a man who would soon abandon his bride-to-be.

  Unless, Carrie thought, something serious happened—something that would change everything. Like becoming a vampire. She still struggled to acknowledge the issue without feeling like a gullible child. She raised her hand to the side of her neck, and the double fang marks there throbbed dully beneath her fingertips. Yes, Brendan had supplied considerable evidence to back up his claim.

  She set the picture back on the dresser. Next she scooped up a small stack of papers—credit card bills—and shoved them into the top drawer. She didn’t want Brendan to see she’d been struggling financially since his disappearance and the consequent loss of his income. And she especially didn’t want him to see some of the particular purchases she’d made—nestled among the charges at grocery stores and her utility payments was evidence of just how much she’d spent on alcohol lately. Seeing the statements turned her cheeks warm and just the thought of Brendan finding out made them absolutely burn. He had claimed he was no longer the man he used to be, but she didn’t think he’d considered the possibility that she had sunk to levels that her old self would have scorned. With luck, he wouldn’t, and she could go back to being the woman she’d been before his disappearance.

  With the bills safely hidden, Carrie began to disrobe, slowly unveiling the rest of the proof of Brendan’s return. She had never been one to bruise particularly easily, and yet the soft, white curves of her hips had been touched with abstract whirls of blue and purple. Could a man do that simply by loving her? Brendan’s fiercely labouring body had certainly slammed with force against her ribs and hips. That was something her old self had never experienced.

  Carrie did her best to push aside all thoughts of blood as she stood naked before her dresser and pulled out the second drawer from the top, where she kept her lingerie. She dug through the assortment of brightly-coloured, lace-trimmed negligees she’d collected during the course of her and Brendan’s relationship, as well as the depressingly modest garments she’d bought over the past year, until her fingertips scraped against the wooden bottom of the drawer. She groped there until she felt delicate, barely-there material between her fingers. Then she lifted it carefully, holding it up against the light.

  It was snow white and filmy, trimmed at the bust with blue ribbon. It would hug her figure like a second skin, clinging to her shoulders with decorative lace cap-sleeves and skirting her derriere in another flourish of lace. She had bought it more than a year ago in preparation for her and Brendan’s wedding night. She pulled it over her head, wiggling into it with care, not wanting to risk tearing the delicate material.

  When the garment was in place, Carrie surveyed her reflection in the mirror that hung on her closet door. The blue ribbon wove in and out of the neckline and finished in a bow between her breasts. Her nipples peeked from beneath the fabric, dark against its pale film. The bottom curves of her buttocks peeped from below the hem, the rest barely obscured by the ultra-thin material. She had bought it with Brendan’s tastes in mind. She hoped he would still love it as much as the old Brendan would have. She remembered their encounter the night before and had a sudden vision of the delicate garment being ripped to shreds. Oh well, she thought. She’d chosen it and donned it as a gift to him.

  She flopped onto her back, landing on the carefully-made bed to await Brendan’s arrival. Her breasts pointed towards the ceiling, straining the fabric of her slip at their peaks so it almost appeared not to be there at all. She ran her fingers over the smooth curve of her right breast and watched her nipple harden. The other did the same when she pressed her palm against it and they both ached slightly, as if in memory of Brendan’s touch. She sighed quietly and released them, moving her hands instead to the cleft between her legs.

  It was slick already with anticipation, and her fingers glided easily over the folds of soft skin. She moved them upwards, pressing delicately against her clitoris. It throbbed in response, begging for more attention, oblivious to who gave it. She obliged, and it swelled beneath her fingertips as she massaged it, the rounded ends of her nails biting into her tender skin.

  A slight flash of movement in the bedroom doorway caught her eye, and she turned her head quickly. Brendan stood there, paler than ever beneath the artificial apartment lights. Her eyes widened as she stared, frozen, with her fingertips pressed between her own legs and her breasts heaving slightly.

  “I let my
self in,” he said, and the points of his fangs peeked out as he spoke. “I still have my key,” he added.

  Carrie’s cheeks burnt as Brendan crossed the space between them and sank onto the side of the bed.

  “Let me do that for you,” he said, gently removing her hand from between her legs and placing his own where it had been.

  She moaned wordlessly as he resumed her rubbing, moving his fingertips expertly against the hard nub of her clitoris. He had always known how she liked to be touched, and even she had never quite been able to duplicate his method.

  He stopped suddenly, crying out in alarm. “Carrie!”

  Her eyes, which had drifted shut in ecstasy, flew open. “What?” she gasped. Why, God, had he stopped?

  “What happened to you?” he demanded, gaping down at her thinly-veiled body.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, bewildered.

  He seized the thin material of her slip and yanked it upwards with no regard for the delicacy of the fabric, baring the purple-touched curves of her hips.

  “Oh,” she said, “the bruises. Those are from when we made love last night.”

  He stared in horror. “Oh, God, Carrie, I’m sorry!”

  “It’s not—” she began, but she was silenced by a pillow as Brendan rolled her onto her stomach in one swift motion. She sputtered, knowing he was staring at her bruised buttocks. A moment later, he smoothed his hands over them with reverent delicacy.

  “I’m so sorry,” he moaned again. “I had no idea I was hurting you like this, I—”

  “It’s not a big deal, Brendan.”

  “I’m stronger than I was as a human,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard her, “and sometimes I don’t realise how much strength I’m using. I’m so sorry!”