Trusting Eternity (The Sullivan Vampires, Volume 2

by Bridget Essex

  Overhead, the Sullivan Hotel sat impassive on the cliff, life moving through it and not touching it.

  This far out to sea, the building crouched, silent, brooding and uncaring.

  The stars overhead were just as cold. And in front of me, Tommie’s body was chill to the touch.

  I held her hand tightly. I tried to pull my focus away from the shore.

  And Kane, distant on the beach, turned and curved away from me as she walked away.

  ---

  “How can we be out of milk?” I asked Gwen. I almost followed that up with I didn’t think vampires drank milk, but I stopped myself just in time.

  Gwen still didn’t know what, exactly, our employers were. And it was probably best for her if it was kept that way.

  At the very least, it was less stressful assuming you were working for human beings.

  “Molly gave me the list, and we’re out of milk,” said Gwen with a shrug, tossing me a small notebook that bore our cook’s writing across the top: Kitchen Notes. “And you’ve been pretty mopey today, so I thought you’d like to go grocery shopping with me, get you out of the hotel. Because we could totally stop by the coffee shop…” Gwen trailed off, cocking her head to the side as she wrinkled her nose and took me in. “I mean, it’s your day off, Rose…don’t tell me you’re just going to stay in here? It’s not like I don’t like having you in my room every minute that you’re not working…” she said, spreading her hands with a brow raised. “But you definitely need some outdoor time. Or…something.” She pursed her lips and put her hands on her hips. “I mean, it’s gorgeous out. It’s the perfect fall day. You shouldn’t waste it.”

  I shrugged a little, playing with the hem of my sweater. Its true: I was in a bad mood today. Gwen was being utterly wonderful, letting me stay in her room, but it wasn’t the biggest room in the world, and she was right: every moment I wasn’t working I was in here. I knew my best friend valued her alone time.

  But I still hadn’t worked up the courage to go see Kane about getting my lock changed. I had somewhat hoped that it would just happen all by itself without any interference from me, that Kane would remember that I needed my lock changed back and would order it done.

  That way, I could avoid seeking her out. I could avoid talking to her. I could avoid seeing her.

  Okay, so that was totally cowardly. But every single time I thought about Kane, my heart broke all over again. I couldn’t really imagine what would happen if I saw her face to face, if I saw that sorrow in her expression, in her bright blue eyes as she gazed at me, seeing to the very deepest parts of me.

  God, this was such a mess.

  “What about Tommie? Why aren’t you with her today?” asked Gwen innocently, sitting down on the couch next to me. I drew my legs up under my skirt and sighed.

  “She’s in a meeting for the Conference all day. We’re going to do something tonight,” I told her.

  “Like what…” She drew out the words, her brows raised. I shrugged.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe another boat ride. It was really lovely last night,” I said, which was the truth. But the beauty and majesty of the evening and the countless number of stars overhead had been somewhat dampened by my spotting Kane on the beach. And, immediately, being unable to control the strong feelings that surged through me.

  “Come to Eternal Cove with me,” said Gwen in a strong tone that brooked no argument. She got up quickly, stretching overhead. “Seriously. You can’t stay cooped up in here all day. You’re making me feel all antsy. And two people grocery shopping is so much faster than one,” she cajoled, waggling her brows at me as she chuckled. When I raised a single brow at her and smiled, she went for broke: “I’ll buy you a pumpkin latte,” she sang.

  At that point, I just felt silly. My best friend was doing everything in her power to make me feel better, and was letting me stay in her room because I couldn’t work up the courage to speak to our boss.

  I could manage a trip to town. It was the least I could do.

  “Okay, okay,” I chuckled, rising. “How can I refuse a pumpkin latte?”

  “I thought you were going to say how could you refuse me?” she asked with a small pout, but then Gwen chuckled and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, squeezing tightly before taking a step back. “Do me a big favor before we head out?” she asked. The words were purposefully light and innocent, and my eyes narrowed at that.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Can you talk to Kane about switching your lock back? Or giving you a key to your room?” she asked. Her brows were raised, but she was very carefully watching my expression, waiting for my reaction.

  It was stupid that I hadn’t already asked her for these things—it should have been the first thing I did. I knew that. But still, when she said the word Kane, my stomach dropped away from me.

  But I needed my room back. It wasn’t fair to Gwen.

  “Yeah,” I said, keeping my voice light. “I can do that,” I smiled at her, realizing how fake it probably looked, but I was doing the best I could. “Why don’t you get dressed?” I asked, gesturing to her pajamas, “and I’ll meet you downstairs at the front desk? Kane’s probably still in her office getting ready for the meeting,” I said, hazarding a guess. I didn’t know exactly where she was, but it was as good a place as any to start looking for her. And if she wasn’t in her office, at least I could say that I’d tried to find her. “I’ll talk to her,” I said, my tongue suddenly dry. I cleared my throat, pressed my already sweating palms to my skirted thighs.

  I could do this.

  I moved quickly out of Gwen’s bedroom and down the spiral staircase before I could change my mind. I walked past vampires milling in the hallways, socializing and meeting on the landings as they congregated around the comfortable couches set up there as social areas. Some of them flicked their eyes to me (fresh meat, I thought), but I purposefully did not look their way, and as I walked down the floors, moving toward Kane’s office, I became more and more lost in my thoughts and worries.

  I’d knock on Kane’s door only once, I decided. And if I didn’t hear anything inside in a heartbeat (or so), I’d turn around and make my way immediately back up to Gwen’s bedroom, and I could tell her that I’d tried, but there’d been no one there.

  Hey, it was a cowardly plan, admittedly: but at least I was going to try.

  When I reached Kane’s office, I stopped at the door, raising my hand to the antique wood. All of my plans crumbled in that moment, because I heard a low, muted woman’s voice inside.

  There was someone in there.

  Kane.

  I pressed my palm flat to the door, felt the wood beneath my already too-warm skin as I felt the blush erupt in my skin.

  I took a deep breath, every inch of my body shaking. And then I curled my hand into a fist, lifted it from the wood and knocked once, quietly against the door.

  There was silence from the other side for a heartbeat. And then came the smooth, soft growl: “come.” That single word knocked the breath out of me, made every atom in my body turn toward her. Because it was Kane’s voice on the other side of that door.

  I took a deep breath, steadied myself against the doorknob as I somehow found a few more scraps of courage inside of me. And then I opened the door, letting myself into the dark room. I shut the door behind me, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark for a moment. Her scent assaulted me, the intoxicating, cool scent of jasmine, vanilla and spice. It seemed to merge with the old wood of the walls and desk, the pungent aroma of old books that lined the walls behind her.

  “Rose.” The single word came from the darkness in the room, from the other side of the room.

  And that single word broke my heart.

  Kane’s voice was low and strong, but in that single syllable, the syllable of my name, her voice broke at the end. It was almost inaudible, how her voice cracked at the end of it, but the room was so still and quiet, I heard it anyway. Her voice, normally so throaty and low and strong, had
broken.

  My eyes adjusted, and I took in the broad, antique desk, took in the woman seated behind it.

  She was wearing a suit and tie, as always. Her long, white-blonde hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail, and her bright blue eyes were piercing me through as she rose slowly, ascending like an angel as she stood, straight and tall, behind the desk, one hand gripping the edge of the desk like she needed to hold tightly to it in order to keep from collapsing.

  She stared at me, and her mouth downturned, softly and slowly, into a frown.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked, her voice gentle. I stared at her, tried to take a deep breath, my heart pounding inside of me.

  It couldn’t be like this, every time we saw one another. We lived in the same house, and it was a very big house, but she was my boss, and I was her employee, and that meant we’d have to see each other often. And it couldn’t be like this every time.

  I couldn’t bear this, every time. And I didn’t think she could, either. I took a deep breath, straightened my shoulders, and looked past her gaze, at the bookshelf behind her.

  “My lock…could it be changed back? Or could I get the keys to the one that was put in? I’m staying with Gwen right now, since Melody changed the lock on my door, but I think I’m crowding Gwen,” I said, surprised at how calm my voice sounded. My gaze flicked back to her, and I hoped that she couldn’t see in the dark how my eyes roved over her body.

  We were about ten feet apart, but it was obvious to me, in that moment, that even that distance wasn’t enough. I could feel the pull of her body tugging me closer, and it was taking every single ounce of strength within me to resist it.

  I was pulled to her like the tides are pulled to shore. I didn’t understand why, and in that moment, I hated it. I wanted this to be simple—I wanted to be able to come with her with a simple request like a key to my room. But even this was complicated, this simple standing, ten feet apart.

  I wanted to taste her, I realized, as I stared at her, as I stared at her full lips, downturning into a frown at the mere sight of me. And I would never be able to taste her again.

  We stood like that, tense and hard, each body curling away from the other, tension crackling between us like electricity racing through a wire.

  “Yes,” she said heavily, finally. She pulled open the top drawer next to her, and took out a key ring that contained two brass keys. “I’m sorry for all this trouble,” she said then, the words low and long. She breathed out, held the keys out to me in the palm of her hand.

  I didn’t want to cross that space between us to stand in front of her. I didn’t want to hold out my hand to her, to chance the moment that skin might brush against skin. I have self-control, I have strength, but this was something outside those bounds. The want and need that roared through me, the tug of gravity that was Kane, standing behind the desk, was otherworldly.

  I took a step forward. Two. I took three and four, and then I was standing right in front of the desk. I was shaking, as I held out my hand to her.

  Kane took a deep breath, staring down at that hand, and then she set the keys on top of the desk. She reached out with long fingers, and she curled them around my wrist so softly and gently that when her skin touched mine, I almost cried out.

  It was almost painful, when her skin met mine. There was such a jolt of longing that roared through me that I felt faint. My breathing intensified, my heart roared through me, and then somehow, impossibly, Kane was bending to me, bending forward in a soft, sweeping bow.

  She turned my hand over, and curving forward with cold grace, she pressed her cool mouth to my palm.

  “Please don’t,” I whispered, and then she was gazing up at me from that position, bent elegantly forward, her mouth against my palm. Her piercing blue gaze held me to the spot, and there was such a shocking amount of desire in that gaze, such power in those two blue eyes, that I felt my resolve peel away from me like petals. I wanted to crawl across the desk for her, wrap my arms around her, savagely pull her to me and kiss her like I’d never kissed anyone before. Like this was the first and best kiss of my entire life.

  Her body called to me, and my own answered. And there was nothing to be done about any of it.

  But I resisted. And she did, too, because she regretfully straightened, curling her body upward and away from me like it was the most painful thing she’d ever done.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, the words pain-filled and husky. She picked up the keys and set them in my palm, and her fingers lingered as I stood there woodenly, my eyes filling with tears.

  I didn’t understand what was between us. I didn’t understand why I was so drawn to her. But I was. She was everything that I’d ever wanted, the woman that I had dreamed of my entire life.

  In that single moment, I had somehow betrayed Tommie, I knew. But with Tommie, I was betraying Kane.

  Wasn’t I?

  I stared at her in confusion, my eyes filling with tears. I held my breath, willing the tears to stop, but a single hot drop spilled out of my right eye and traced its way down my cheek.

  I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

  “What are you doing to me?” I asked then, brokenly, holding the keys tightly to my chest, curling my fingers tightly around the freezing metal. “Why are you doing this?” I asked, the words breaking at the ends.

  “Please, Rose,” she whispered, her voice shaking as she braced herself against the edge of the desk. Her gaze raked over me and fixed itself to the top of her desk. Her eyes had looked hunted. “I would rather die than hurt you,” she whispered.

  “You’re hurting me,” I told her.

  We stared at one another, then. She shook her head, her violently blue eyes closed to me. When she opened them, she stared at the surface of her desk. She did not look at me.

  “Please,” she said then, taking a quavering, deep breath. “Please go. I’m sorry.”

  I turned on my heel, and somehow I found the strength to make my way across the room, to open the door and push my body out of it. I stumbled down the hallway, and I found a restroom, its heavy oaken door hardly able to be opened, but I managed to tug it toward me, and I let myself into the old bathroom, holding myself up against the wall.

  This was crazy. There was something between Kane and I that defied conventional ideas, that defied what I’d thought the world could be like. It was uncontrollable, the connection between us, and somehow—impossibly—it had to be controlled.

  If I was going to begin a relationship with Tommie, I had to commit to her one hundred percent. I had never cheated, and I would never cheat, but there was such a draw to Kane that it seemed almost impossible for me to halt the maddening crescendo of need that I felt for that woman.

  I took a deep breath. I just had to concentrate on Tommie. I had to concentrate on Tommie wholeheartedly, and then maybe…maybe I could forget about Kane.

  I laughed at myself in that moment, laughed as tears traced their way down my cheeks.

  How could I hope to forget the maddening, gorgeous woman when our paths would cross, every single day?

  This was all so impossible and pain-filled. But, somehow, I had to keep going.

  I washed my face carefully with cold water in the sink, drying it on the paper towels from the dispenser as I stared at my reflection in the mirror. I took a couple more deep breaths, and then I left the restroom, pasted a pleasant expression on my face and found my way back to Gwen’s room.

  “Mission accomplished,” I told her, my voice cracking a little at the end, but I bit my lip and tried a smile as I held out my hand with the key ring in the center of my palm. “Great, right?” I asked her. She was drying her hair from the shower she’d just taken, and she looked suspicious as she stared at me with a single brow raised, but she nodded, folding the towel over the ends of her hair that were already curling.

  “Yeah, that’s good,” she said, frowning. She paused. “Rose, are you all right?”

  “Fine,” I lied again. It was becomin
g a regular occurrence, these lies, but I took another deep breath and attempted a smile.

  We drove together down to Eternal Cove and found the only grocery store situated off the main road. It was called Paul Whitby’s Grocery, and looked like it’d existed in Eternal Cove for longer than the town itself had existed. It was also tiny (though well stocked and maintained, I thought, what with having worked at a grocery store for many, many years), but it didn’t need to have exotic ingredients.

  The shopping list was not that long or extensive that Molly, the cook, wanted for the hotel. We were apparently out of milk and pancake mix (it was an almost amusing idea to me, the thought of vampires ever eating pancakes. I would assume that the pancake mix was mostly for Sullivan Hotel’s staff of humans), and lettuce and tomatoes. By the time we were loading up the car, it was already late afternoon, and we took a quick detour to the coffee shop, ordering our lattes to go.

  “I need batteries for my camera,” said Gwen thoughtfully as she blew on the surface of her latte, the steam curling up around her already too-curly hair. “For the dance on Friday!” she said with a wink. “It needs to be documented, all of that fanciness. I even ordered a dress online. I think you’ll like it—”

  I was off in my own little world at that point, but this statement brought me back to reality. “You ordered a dress?” I repeated, blinking. “Why?”

  “We’re all going to the dance, Rose,” she said, her brows rising. “Everyone in Eternal Cove is talking about it—they’re all going to go. Not much happens around here, so Kane made the dance open to the public. And that includes us.”

  I stared at her with an open mouth. My first thought was that all of the townsfolk of Eternal Cove would be vulnerable to vampire attack…but then I remembered (for the millionth time) that the treaty for the Conference was in place, and that the vampires couldn’t hunt while they were here.