by Ranae Rose
“I only ever wanted to be here, to feel you holding me,” Carrie said. “That’s why I did those things.”
He pressed his lips against hers in answer, his lashes brushing her cheek as softly as a summer breeze. There was no roughness to his motions, no sense of underlying ferocity, no indication he could, or would, ever take someone’s life. No indication, other than the coolness of his skin, that he wasn’t the same man she’d agreed to marry.
“Brendan…” She’d managed to get him halfway out of his jeans by now, but for just a moment, she only wanted to wrap her arms around him. “I love you,” she said, embracing him and pressing her face against his shoulder. Tendrils of his hair brushed her forehead.
“I love you, too,” he said. His arms were still around her, and though he made no motion to do anything other than hold her, the evidence of his desire to do more rose tall and hard between them, trapped between their bodies. He groaned when she shifted slightly against him, seeking a more comfortable position, but made no move to initiate the inevitable.
“How will we do this?” she eventually asked, reaching below to caress him. Her back ached constantly now, warning her against anything that might involve lying on it.
Brendan sighed and tipped his head backwards, letting his hair tumble over the top of the couch cushion. “Just like this.”
A shiver of anticipation raced down Carrie’s spine at Brendan’s suggestion and the sight of his full lips parting to speak. Idly, he traced his tongue along the inside of his lower lip. She was already straddling him as he reclined on the couch, and his erection was already pressing against her from below. The only thing that stood between them was clothing—mostly hers. She began to shed it slowly as he watched, something he’d asked her to do more times than she could count before they’d lost each other.
His tongue appeared again as he traced the edge of his lip once more. She leant forward and touched it with her own as she let her shirt flutter to the floor. He responded at once, pushing his tongue past her parted lips and sliding it over hers. She pulled away just enough to catch his lower lip between her teeth, biting before she released it. He sighed, and as he tried to kiss her again, she rose from his lap so she could shed her jeans and bra.
He reached out to lend a helping hand when she was down to her panties, tucking his fingertips into the edge of the soft, pink lace she’d worn especially for him—he’d told her the colour looked good on her once, nearly two years ago. She let him pull the delicate material over her hips, watching him come off the couch to kneel before her as he bared her. He closed his eyes and slowly pressed a kiss just below her navel as he peeled the lace over her knees then off altogether as she lifted her feet. When he had cast it aside, he slid his lips slowly along her skin, marking each few centimetres with a kiss. She closed her eyes, too, and let the sensation wash over her for a few moments, sighing. When her knees grew too weak to support her for much longer, she pressed a hand against his forehead, bidding him to stop.
He pulled her onto his lap, parting her legs with his, gripping her buttocks first then sliding his hands down to caress her inner thighs, teasing. She leant forward to plant a light kiss on his lips, and her breasts brushed his chest. Straightening again, she reached below to grasp his cock firmly, guiding him without pause to the slippery cleft between her legs. He was ready. No sooner had she placed him against the opening into her body than he pushed in, sheathing himself completely in one forceful stroke. She gasped and gripped his shoulders for support, suddenly regretting that, in her eagerness, she hadn’t taken off his shirt. His cool skin beneath the fabric soothed her own, which burnt with arousal. She pressed her check against his as he moved rhythmically beneath her, enjoying the coolness of his body for a moment before shifting to nip his earlobe, exhaling slowly as she held it between her teeth.
“Oh, Carrie…”
He started to wrap his arms around her as if to pull her hard against him, but hesitated because of her bandages. Eventually he cupped her buttocks instead, grasping them firmly as she planted a kiss against his neck in the same place he’d bitten her during their first night together. The act brought back the memory of their lovemaking, of a year’s worth of longing and urgency. Some of it still lingered, and she wondered if she would ever have enough of him. He was inside her now, rock-hard and reaching deep, and still she wanted more. She squeezed his shoulders, and he obliged her, making her squirm in his lap. She almost bit him when the first stirrings of orgasm seized her, and he drove her quickly to climax with several hard thrusts from below. Instead of biting, she tossed back her head and cried out, her tight grip on his shoulders the only thing that kept her from collapsing and perhaps toppling off his lap.
He eased his pace, pushing himself into her with deliberate slowness. She was torn between the desire to savour every second of this treatment and asking him to move more quickly. Sensations swirled within her again, spiralling towards a second orgasm with each agonisingly delightful stroke. If he didn’t indulge her soon, she might explode. But then, she might very well do the same if he did. So she clung to his shoulders, gripping him tightly inside her and panting. When he began to increase his speed, she cried out as spasms of ecstasy swept through her. Brendan joined her, gasping then moaning as he finally reached his own climax, finishing with an intensity that made Carrie shudder, her chest heaving as she clung to him for support.
A little while later she lay in bed, exhausted and satisfied enough to let Brendan bid her goodbye. He paused to kiss her one last time before he slipped out of the door and into the night, gone from lover to hunter in the blink of an eye. As she rested, an intense sensation blossomed suddenly in her core and was gone as quickly as it had come—a ghost of the pleasure he’d created as he’d made love to her. It haunted her all night, causing her to sigh in her sleep, tossing and turning as she relived his touch.
Chapter Four
The next morning had scarcely dawned by the time Carrie’s alarm clock went off, jarring her from a dream of being wrapped in Brendan’s arms. The fantasy lingered as she silenced the buzzer and swung her feet out of bed, feeling lonely. She had got her nights with Brendan back, but when would she wake up beside him again? She longed for his body to be denting the mattress, his arm draped over her side, his hand resting between her breasts. She stretched, as if she could shake off the melancholy yearning by doing so, and the wound across her back throbbed in protest. She winced. What was it the nurse had told her? To take a prescription-strength dose of ibuprofen? She thought she had some in her medicine cabinet. With this in mind, she shuffled towards the bathroom.
The medicine was there. She read the side of the bottle and shook out double the recommended dose into her palm—that was how the nurse had said to do it. Cupping her hand beneath the faucet, she gathered enough water with which to swallow the pills. With that done, there was nothing to do but get ready for work. Her stomach sank down to her toes at the thought—she wanted to spend the day with Brendan. Seized by impulse and a particularly nasty throb of her wound, she returned to her room and picked up her cell phone from the bedside table.
“Carrie?”
Brendan’s voice coming from the other end of the line made her core flutter again, the sensation brief but strong as if his cock were deep inside her once more.
“Yeah, it’s me,” she said. “I’m coming to see you.” Brendan began to protest, but she cut him off. “I know you can’t travel by day, so I’m coming to you. Don’t worry—I have that stun gun I bought yesterday. I’ll be careful.”
“Carrie, you can’t.” This time it was he who interrupted her protest. “I’m not at the warehouse. I’m spending the day somewhere else, to throw her off my trail.”
There was no need to explain ‘her’. Carrie’s stomach contracted at the sound of the simple pronoun.
“I’m going to try to sleep somewhere different every day,” he continued.
A sudden suspicion crept over Carrie. “Brendan, you’re not just
saying that to keep me from coming to you, are you?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He sounded annoyed now.
“Okay, then tell me where you’re staying now.”
She could almost hear him frown over the phone line.
“No,” he said after several moments’ pause. “Stay home. I won’t endanger you unnecessarily by telling you where I am. I don’t know whether I’ve thrown her off my trail or not. She might have spotted me while I was out hunting or travelling—she could know where I am.”
This idea did nothing to deter Carrie but rather sent her heart racing, as if it were urging her to run to him, to claim him before she could find him. “Brendan, I have to see you. I just have to.”
“Sorry, Carrie. I’ll come to the apartment tonight, if I can.”
“If you can? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If I don’t see her…if there’s no sign of her…I’ll come visit you.”
Carrie gripped the phone so tightly she was afraid she might snap it in half. “No, Brendan! That’s not good enough! I don’t want… I don’t want to have to go skulking around just to be with you because of her.”
His reply was just as stubborn as the last. She punched a button angrily, ending the conversation. Reluctantly, she dialled, beginning a different call.
“Hello, Anne? It’s me, Carrie. I’m really sorry, but I can’t come in to work today. I fell last night and had to get quite a few stitches. I’m really not feeling well.” That much was true, she thought, although her ill mood had more to do with Brendan’s stubbornness than her back. “Yeah, I’m sorry, Anne. Okay. See you then.”
With her cell phone shoved deep into her pocket, she seized her jacket from her closet, shoved her arms hastily through the sleeves, stuffed a few items into the pockets and stormed for the door. Brendan might have lied to her in one of his bull-headed attempts to protect her. He might be spending the day at the warehouse. Or not. Either way, she was going to find out for herself.
She made her way towards Brendan’s seedy building on foot, as usual, keeping her hand tucked into the pocket where she carried her stun gun just in case. She didn’t see anyone else for a couple of blocks, until she rounded the corner and stepped into the alley between Brendan’s building and the equally sad structure that stood beside it.
The person she found there wasn’t another thug, as she’d feared when she first caught a glimpse of a human figure. It was a woman, strangely attired. She wore a white dress that reached the ground, simply cut, long-sleeved and high-necked. The garment covered everything save for her face and her hands, on which she wore matching white gloves, but it clung to her every generous curve to the point of being rendered immodest despite its coverage. Blonde, spiral curls peeked out from beneath a wide-brimmed hat, and she carried an umbrella, holding it so it shaded her face from the morning sunlight. The woman turned to face her just as Carrie stepped into the alleyway, staring at her from behind the lenses of oversized sunglasses.
Carrie froze. She had not expected to meet anyone there, let alone a woman who was dressed as if she had a sun allergy. Her skin was porcelain and extremely pale…
“You!” Carrie snarled. The vampiress was an undead beauty, a creature built of soft, ample curves yet somehow delicate in appearance at the same time. Carrie hated her even more for it. “You!” She dared to take a step towards the vampiress, seething with sudden rage. “You filthy bitch,” she said, Brendan’s description from the night before springing to her lips.
The vampiress actually took a step backwards as Carrie advanced on her.
Carrie clenched her fist tight around the handle of the stun gun she held in her pocket. Would it work on a vampire? If it did, the vampiress would fall and be exposed to the sun, weakened…would the effect be strong enough for Carrie to cut out her heart? She didn’t know how, exactly, she’d do that, but at the moment, she didn’t really care. She could see herself ripping it out with her bare hands. Her vision darkened, and her blood pounded in her ears as she stared at the creature who’d stolen Brendan’s humanity, who’d forced her to send out wedding cancellation notices as she’d grieved for her lost fiancé…
“I think you’re mistaken,” the vampiress said in a surprisingly mild voice. “I can’t be anyone you know.”
“Oh, I know who you are, and I know what you are,” Carrie said, taking another step forward, gripping the stun gun in her fist. “You’re a vampire.” She felt a faint sense of ridiculousness at making such a declaration out loud, but it was quickly overpowered by her anger and forgotten.
The vampiress’s eyebrows climbed above the rims of her sunglasses. “How did you know? You’re human—I can smell your blood.”
“You’re not the first vampire I’ve met,” Carrie said.
“Then…” the vampiress eyed Carrie as if debating how much she should reveal to her. “My name is Sophia.” She extended a hand towards Carrie.
Carrie glared down at it with disdain, keeping the stun gun levelled at her. A sharp pang of agony had pierced her heart when the vampiress had announced her name. Before, the vampiress in Carrie’s horrified imaginings had been a nameless, faceless she-devil. Now, she was real.
Sophia eyed the stun gun with interest. “Those won’t work on us. I’ve no idea why, but they don’t. You wouldn’t be the first to try.”
“And I should believe you?” Carrie demanded.
“Go ahead and shoot me with it if you like. I’ve heard it doesn’t even hurt.” Sophia spread her arms in invitation.
Carrie hesitated only a moment before firing.
Sophia looked down at herself. “Actually, it tickles. And now that is settled”—she turned her gaze on Carrie again—“maybe you can help me. I’m looking for another vampire. I have reason to believe he might stay here at times. Do you know if that’s true?”
Carrie’s rage burnt white hot as her suspicions were confirmed—Sophia was looking for Brendan. “Burn in hell,” she snarled. “I’m not going to help you.”
Sophia regarded her calmly. “Who do you think I am?”
Carrie’s face blazed with heat. Her blood pounded more loudly in her ears, and when she spoke, it was as if her voice were far away and not her own. “The monster that turned my fiancé into a vampire.”
“I’m not,” Sophia said evenly. “You’re mistaken.”
“Oh, well, that clears that up,” Carrie said sarcastically. “I guess I’ll lead you straight to him now, just like you asked.” Burning nausea boiled in the pit of her stomach, and she clenched her fists tight as she listened to Sophia lie, reminding her she still held her useless weapon. She thrust it into her pocket. Damn, why couldn’t that gun have worked on this monster?
“I’m not her,” Sophia repeated. “But I do know who you’re talking about.”
Carrie glared at her.
“Your fiancé,” Sophia continued, “he was turned into a vampire by a ‘filthy bitch’ of a vampiress? Did it happen about a year ago?”
Carrie nodded.
“And does he have scars from his transformation”—she moved her white-gloved hand to rest at her groin—“here?”
Carried nodded again, swallowing a large lump in her throat.
“It was her, then,” the vampiress said with a nod. “Isadora.”
Carrie blinked back tears and licked her lips, which had gone suddenly dry in stark contrast to her eyes. “How do you know?”
Sophia’s pale face darkened, as if it had fallen under a sudden shadow. “That filthy bitch…” she said, “I’m hunting her.”
Carrie shoved a hand deep into her other pocket, grasping the object she found there and withdrawing it. The screen of her cell phone glared dully in the daylight as she dialled Brendan’s new number. “I need to know something,” she said when he picked up.
“What is it?” Brendan asked.
“Promise!” she urged. “Promise you’ll answer me!”
There was a
pause from the other end of the line. “All right,” he finally said. “What do you want to know?”
“The vampire who…who changed you,” she said. “What did she look like?”
Brendan exhaled sharply. “Carrie…”
“What did she look like?” she repeated, her voice taut with urgency.
“Pale,” Brendan replied. “She was pale, with long dark hair down to her waist. She was tall—almost as tall as I am.” He paused for another moment. “Why, Carrie? Why do you want to know?”
Carrie abruptly snapped the phone shut and shoved it back into her pocket, surveying Sophia critically. She was certainly pale, and although her hair was blonde, that didn’t mean anything—she could easily have changed its colour. Her height, though…the vampiress who stood before Carrie was petite, a mere five foot four, at most, and that was including whatever shoes she wore beneath her long dress. Brendan was an even six feet tall. Was it possible the vampiress hadn’t been lying?
Carrie’s cell phone rang loudly in her pocket, once, twice, then a third time. She ignored its desperate fourth ring.
“Why are you hunting her?” Carrie asked.
“For the same reason you would be, if you were me,” Sophia replied. “She killed my husband.”
Carrie blanched. “Killed?”
Sophia nodded. “You don’t know? Oh, of course you don’t.” She frowned.
“Know what?” Carrie asked, beginning to feel frantic.
“That’s what she does,” Sophia replied, “to all of the men she changes. She leaves them and comes back a year later to use them and kill them afterwards.”
Carrie’s jaw dropped, and her mouth widened in horror. “That’s why she’s here?” A hollow pit opened in her stomach—even the nausea had been better than this sudden, painful emptiness, she thought.
