Eternity and a Year (3 page)

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 myself 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!”

“I said it’s all right.” She was speaking more to the pillow than to him.

“No, it’s not all right,” he insisted. “I hurt you. I won’t do it again—I’ll be more careful.”

Carrie quivered beneath his touch.

“I think,” Brendan said tentatively after a few moments, “there’s something I could do to help with the discomfort.”

“What?” she asked, curious.

In answer, he lowered his head, and the softness of his mouth pressed against her right buttock. No sooner had his lips touched her flesh than it began to tingle, becoming pleasantly warm. A strange sensation followed, of
blood flowing beneath her skin, as if new life had been breathed into the congealed bruises. She lay still, even when two tiny pinpricks pierced her flesh. An intense, steady suction lasted for a minute, then he stopped. He repeated the process on her left buttock.

“How does that feel?” he asked when he’d finished.

Carrie reached back and pressed a hand against her rear end. It didn’t hurt. She sat up—something that had caused little twinges of pain throughout the day—and still no discomfort, save for slight stinging sensations where the tips of Brendan’s teeth had pricked her skin. “It’s fine,” she said with surprise.

Brendan smiled with red-tinged lips. “I drew out the blood that had gathered beneath your skin,” he said. “The bruises are gone. There are small puncture wounds, of course, but I think those will heal more quickly than the bruises would have.” He eyed her body as he spoke, his gaze resting on her breasts, which now peeked out from beneath the disturbed hem of her garment.

He cradled Carrie in his arm and bent to press his lips to her breast, brushing the lower swell he’d bared. His mouth moved delicately against her skin, as if it belonged to a being that had wings, not fangs. Her nipple stood pointed and waiting as he brushed the skin beside it, as if anticipating its turn to be sucked. He moved on to the other breast without touching it, and she sighed. After a few more moments of his tender teasing, she tensed as his breath streamed around her nipple and watched as he descended on it slowly with an open mouth.

His lips were warm, a pleasant after-effect of being pressed so long against her flesh. Carrie moaned as he covered her pink, hardened skin with his mouth, drawing it in as smoothly as he had drained her bruises. He used a force that grew steadily more intense, until the tips of his fangs broke the rounded surface of her breast and began to sink into the tissue on either side of her areola. She gasped and squirmed beneath him, but doing so only tugged uncomfortably against the anchors that his fangs had become in her flesh. He tightened his cradling grasp around her body and pressed a hand forcefully against the centre of her back, forcing it to arch. Her breast bulged in his mouth, and he drew upon it hungrily. Her nipple lay on his tongue, but the liquid he drank came from the puncture wounds he’d made on either side of it.

“Brendan,” she gasped. He sucked harder, and her blood surged through her breast into his mouth. “Brendan! You’re hurting me!” she panted.

The suction between his mouth and her skin broke with a small sound. Her nipple sat atop her pale breast like a cherry on top of a sundae, coloured by her own blood. Brendan stared down at it, his eyes wild, his mouth red. Rivulets like scarlet ribbons began to stream down each sloping side of her breast, and he bent to wipe them away with his tongue. Carrie braced herself for the sharp prick of his fangs, but he only mouthed the original wounds, licking them dry.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, tearing himself away with obvious difficulty and collapsing onto the bed beside her. He pounded a pillow with his fist. “I’m sorry! I couldn’t stop myself!”

Carrie stared down at her bloodied breast. Several drops had stained the snowy fabric of her wedding night attire. “It’s okay,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

He shook his head. “I thought a year would be long enough. I thought I’d be able to control myself by now. I was wrong.”

Carrie stroked the soft, dark waves of his hair. “That’s why you avoided me for a year?”

He nodded. “I had to stay away from you. I knew I’d lose control and kill you if I didn’t. But it was so hard… I almost did, one night.”

She stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“I watched you, some nights,” he admitted. “Sometimes I’d follow you as you walked home from work. Other times, I looked in through your window. There were several times I almost lost control, but one in particular…”

“When?” Carrie asked, her voice tense. She had felt watched some nights, though she had written it off as wishful thinking—or paranoia, depending on her mood. Once, she had even thought she’d heard him say her name. Had it actually happened?

“This past summer,” he replied. “I’d come to watch you sleep. You were sweating, and your hair was all damp from it. I thought it was just because it had been so hot that day, but then I saw you were moving under the sheets.”

Heat flooded her cheeks.

“You were touching yourself,” he said softly, a hard edge of arousal in his voice. He pressed himself suddenly against her, grinding his hips and the urgent stiffness between them against her thigh.

“Your hand was moving, and your nipples were poking up against the sheet. It slipped down over your breasts as you arched your hips when you came.” He shuddered and grasped one of her breasts tightly. “I wanted so badly to come in and rip that sheet all the way off you and fuck you,” he breathed in her ear.

Carrie took advantage of the opportunity to bury her face in Brendan’s cool shoulder. Maybe it would return her cheeks to their normal temperature and colour. Between the arousal and shocked embarrassment his story had incited, they must have become nearly as red as his eyes.

“You don’t know how hard it was for me to walk away,” he said, holding her tightly against his body. He slid his hands to below her waist where slickness awaited them. “Now I can finally live out my fantasy.” A note of disbelief sounded in his voice, along with excitement.

She tensed in anticipation as he bowed his head again to explore the slippery opening into her body.

His tongue worked its way across her most delicate parts much more softly than she would have believed it could after the way he’d handled her the night before. She lay on the pillows with her eyes shut and his dark head between her legs, his soft hair tickling the insides of her thighs. It was just as it had been a little over a year ago, when she had been his bride-to-be and he had been human.

Two pinpricks—sharp little starbursts of pain in a dark sky of pleasure—shattered the illusion. She cried out, jerking upright.

Brendan’s head shot upwards, and he leant back suddenly from her body. She shoved her hands between her legs in an effort to soothe the stinging he’d inflicted there.

He snarled, pressing his hands against the sides of his skull and grasping fistfuls of hair in frustration. “I’m sorry, Carrie! I didn’t mean to! I could just feel and smell so much blood flowing beneath your skin…”

She placed a hand on his shaking shoulder. “It’s all right,” she said, “I’m all right. Shhh.”

“No!” he snapped. “It’s not all right, Carrie! This isn’t right! I shouldn’t have come!”

“What are you saying?” Carrie asked. “I’ve been thinking you were dead for the past year! I’ve been mourning for a
year
! Or at least trying to. I could never really get it right, because a part of me hoped you were out there, alive somewhere. Do you have any idea what that’s been like for me? Of course you should have come.”

Brendan shook his head. “I can’t stand what I’ve become, Carrie. I
hate
myself.” Carrie took one of his large hands in hers and squeezed, but he continued. “You don’t realise what it’s like—what
I’m
like—yet. I’d do anything for a taste of blood—even hurt you, apparently.”

His head was bowed, and he was gripping her hand so hard her bones ground against one another. She bit her lip and refused to let him know he was hurting her again.

She laid her other palm gently on his shoulder. “You’ll get better at controlling yourself,” she said, drifting her fingers down over his chest and hard stomach to the fly of his battered jeans. “I know you will. We’ve just been apart for so long, but it’ll get better.”

“No,” he said as she unbuttoned his fly and slid down the zipper.