Eternal Ever After

by A. C. James

  “Hey, Holly!”

  “Hey.”

  “Uh-oh,” Trina said as I grimaced at the mop bucket. “I know that look. I guess Marshall’s giving you a hard time. He’s been awful since Connie…well, you know. I just feel terrible for that man.”

  God knows cancer is a hard thing to talk about, but I cringed when Trina couldn’t bring herself to say it. Sometimes she treated cancer like it was a dirty word. “I guess. But that doesn’t mean he has to be insufferable. It’s been more than a year.”

  “Honey, when my mamma lost her battle with breast cancer I felt like I’d lost my whole world. It takes time, and there’s no telling how long. We just have to give him space and time until he’s ready to move on.”

  I shifted uneasily and looked down at the mop, wringing out the grayish water. Shit, I forgot about her mom. “I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just been a long day.”

  “Trust me, baby girl, I know how frustrating it can be.”

  “Hey, do you think it would be okay if I left ten minutes early, since you’re here now?”

  “Sure thing, honey.”

  “Thanks, Trina. I have to stop at the bank and pick up some milk. And the bank will be closed when I get out.”

  “No problem. You’d do the same for me.”

  “Trina, have you ever seen a guy in here with dark hair and a ‘V’ tattooed on his arm?”

  “Good-looking guy who wears a leather jacket?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sure. Why do you ask?”

  “What do you think of him?”

  “Well, he’s always polite. He has a nice smile and he leaves really good tips. That’s probably why I remember him. Why, do you have a thing for him?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.” Really? Positively. Definitively. Yes. Yes, I wanted him. Every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

  I finished up, tossing the mop and bucket into the storeroom. A few droplets of dingy water splashed over the side as I grabbed my satchel and headed out the door. The purple-tinged sky cast a peculiar light on the pavement. Dense clouds still threatened from above, but it had stopped raining during my boring shift.

  He stood huddled under the awning attached to the weathered building and I almost didn’t see him in the shadows. I stood staring at him for a long moment in awkward silence, listening to the slushing sound of tires pass through a puddle in the street. He was undeniably sexy. I wasn’t on cloud nine. I was on cloud ten.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to sound casual.

  “Hello.”

  “What are you doing here? I mean… Arie, I wanted to thank you for fixing my flat, but you took off before I had the chance.”

  A goofy grin curved his mouth. “Sorry.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re stalking me. You know…you should just ask me out already.” There. I’d said it. And I held my breath as I waited for him to say something.

  His eyes widened infinitesimally. “You want me to ask you out?”

  “Uh…I dunno,” I said with a shrug. “Maybe. At least it would explain your lurking. Otherwise it just comes off as creepy.”

  “Trust me—you don’t want to go out with me.” A pained sort of expression mixed with something else…longing? I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like the idea appealed to him even though he fought against it for some reason.

  I shoved my hands in my pockets, feeling dejected by his reaction. “Fine. There’s a reason why I’m alone. I’m comfortable that way. And I think it would be a lot easier if we just forget this conversation. You can find somewhere else to stop for coffee while you’re at it.”

  He grabbed my arm when I started to brush past him. I looked up into his eyes, embarrassed but unwilling to pull away. “Don’t be that way. I’m just trying to save you from a mistake that would cause you infinite pain.” His hand dropped to his side and pain etched his face.

  “Oh, please. Just stop already. You grin and go all smoldering eyes on me and then choose the lamest, most ineffective move. If playing games is your idea of flirting then just forget it.”

  He took a step toward me. “Is that really what you want?”

  I bit my lower lip while looking into eyes that were like fire and ice combined. The same familiar dizziness I felt when he fixed my tire pressed down on me as he leaned forward. I felt my knees buckle beneath me. Images of my face smashing into the sidewalk, which ran through my mind, seemed a likely conclusion. Within moments strong arms wrapped around my waist, holding me steady. Take slow, deep breaths.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t eat lunch. I guess my sugar is a little low,” I said, pulling away. Although, I didn’t think blood sugar had anything to do with it. It seemed like a reaction to him or the way he looked at me. As much as I wanted him, I didn’t think it explained the powerful response that I felt sometimes with Arie.

  “Are you headed home?”

  I looked down at my leather cuff watch and sighed. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough after his humiliating rejection. It didn’t help my pride that I still wanted him anyway. “Well, I was going to stop at the bank but I probably won’t make it. I guess I just have to stop at Save-A-Lot on the way home. Why do you ask?”

  “Why don’t you let me drive you to the store? And then I’ll drop you off at your house.”

  I shook my head. “I feel fine now. Really. And no offense, but I don’t even know you.”

  “You nearly collapsed. I’m not so harmless, but I promise I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.”

  My breath caught in my throat. Maybe he did want me. The way he looked at me and his words were sexy as hell. “I can’t. I drove my car to work and I won’t be able to get to work tomorrow if I leave it.”

  “Then I’ll drive your car.”

  His logical responses wore me down. I felt confused and muddled when I was around him. The way he looked at me made me feel dizzy—like he was persuading me somehow. Not that I minded being persuaded. Even though my better judgment screamed I shouldn’t go anywhere with someone I’d just met, I sensed that he wouldn’t hurt me. And my desire overruled my logical protest. His voice seemed hypnotic. Sure, he was good-looking. I thought him hanging around the Coffee Grind, fixing my flat, and then waiting outside was because he wanted me. I don’t like games and don’t make it a habit to drive off with strangers. Except every time I tried to form an objection in my mind it felt like I’d drunk too much wine without ever touching a drop. My response to him surprised me. Even though I wanted him, I couldn’t figure out why I felt like such a dizzy mess when his eyes shined like quicksilver rather than their typical gray. Wait…did his eyes just change color or am I hallucinating?

  “Why not? It’s not like the Bug is worth very much whether you wreck it or not.”

  “Good. Consider this my way of making up to you for not asking you out.”

  “Yeah, well it’s not like Save-A-Lot is my idea of a date,” I said with a laugh.

  “Trust me, when I decide to take you on a date you’ll know it.”

  The dizziness had passed and his eyes looked just as gray as they did before, but the way he looked at me provoked images of his hands roaming my body and his cock inside of me. And it had been a really long time. Testing my own plumbing didn’t quite count. “When you take me on a date? Well aren’t you confident,” I said with a smirk. I couldn’t help the sarcasm, still feeling slightly wounded from my failed attempt at flirtation. Especially when he looked at me like he wanted to press me against the brick front of the Coffee Grind and take me right then and there, despite his rejection.

  “I think knowing someone who is certain of themselves terrifies you. But don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Your keys?”

  I plunked the keys into his outstretched palm. His skin felt cold and hard, like he had sleet inside his bones. And I wondered what those cool fingers would feel like trailing up my inner thighs as he… Stop it, Holly. “Yeah, I guess.” I didn’t know wh
at else to say as I pulled the hood of my cargo jacket over my head to shut out the misty air and slid into the passenger seat.

  We drove in silence and I chanced a sideways glance, unable to ignore his pearlescent skin, high cheekbones, and gray eyes. I had an overwhelming urge to scream “Freedom,” at the top of my lungs just to break the stillness. Then he’ll definitely think you’re a crazy nut job. Say something—say anything.

  “You have an odd accent.” I said with a cough. “So where are you from? I’ve always wanted to travel. I really want to go to Italy and ride in a gondola. I think it would be really romantic, except I heard that there’s really big rats in Italy. But I told my co-worker, Trina, that I wouldn’t mind because Chicago has lots of rats too. So I’m used to it.”

  He looked over at me but then fixed his eyes back on the road.

  “And I keep trying to place your accent but it’s really very faint…”

  “Do you always talk this much?” he asked very matter-of-factly.

  “I know. I’m sorry. When I get nervous, I get this sort of verbal diarrhea.” Yup, he thinks I’m nuts.

  Pulling into an empty parking space in the grocery store lot, he turned to me with a serious look. “Isn’t it enough to just be with someone?”

  I swallowed. I wanted to lean forward and kiss him, but one rejection was enough for today. It would be inappropriate for me to answer his question with what I was really thinking—that at that moment I didn’t want to be with anyone else. “I just have to grab a few things. I’ll be right out.” I slammed the car door and dashed across the parking lot before he had a chance to respond.

  Grabbing a basket, I turned down aisles, cursing myself for my stupidity. It wasn’t fair for someone to possess such earth-shattering beauty. It made me into this tongue-tied blubbering mess. When I reached the cash register, I emptied the contents of my basket onto the belt. I felt distracted and wasn’t even sure at this point what I’d grabbed.

  I tossed the bags in the back and buckled myself into the passenger seat.

  “So where do you live?” he asked.

  That same pressing dizziness weighed down on me. I could swear his eyes glinted silver, but only for an instant. And I thought about this time I picked up a hitchhiker and the old man had turned out to be harmless and actually kind of sweet. I usually had good instincts about people, but I hesitated in telling Arie where I lived. Yet as he continued to look at me, I felt dizzy but oddly safe. He had been a perfect gentleman, and I had no clear reason for doubting him. But I wondered why he would go out of his way when he’d rejected me. And why was saying no to him so difficult?

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “Doing what?”

  I shrugged. “Driving me home. What’s in it for you? You have an aversion to asking me out. So obviously that’s not why you’re doing it.”

  “I never said I didn’t want to ask you out. I said you shouldn’t go out with me. And in my day it was the gentleman who was supposed to do the asking.” His smoky eyes darkened as he looked at me almost as if he were undressing me.

  Arie puzzled me. I wanted to ask him if he wanted me the way I was starting to think he did from the look in his eyes, then why the hell didn’t he do something about it? I bit my lower lip. “I think you’d better adjust to the twenty-first century then,” I said with more irritation then I had intended. “Go down to the light and make a right,” I said, pointing down the block. “At the third light, make a left.”

  He nodded in the darkness.

  “Okay, this is me. Thanks for the lift.”

  Parallel parking faster than I’ve ever seen, especially with my car, he pulled into a narrow space. Arie dropped the keys in my lap almost like he didn’t want to touch me. Then he reached through the seats and grabbed the grocery bags before I had a chance to stop him. He walked me to my door and I fumbled unlocking it. I turned to him, hoping he might disappear like before so I wouldn’t have to invite him in. He stood so close I could feel his breath on my forehead and smell his leather jacket mixed with the smell of winter. When he was so near, it made me change my mind. Inviting him in was exactly what I wanted to do. Despite his rejection, despite everything sensible telling me not to, because damn it, I wanted him more than anyone I’d ever met in my entire life. And when he looked at me like he wanted me the same way I wanted him, I felt my disappointment melt away.

  “Do you want to come in? I could make you coffee. But just coffee,” I said, and bit my lower lip.

  His lopsided boyish grin turned my guts to twisted steel. “If you want me to come in, I will.” The grin vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and he looked all serious again.

  I opened the door and, holding my breath, I rounded the corner to follow him. Without being directed he placed the bags of groceries on my kitchen table. I shrugged off my coat and tossed it over a chair. As I put the groceries away his eyes watched me with a teasing and possessive look that I found disarming. It left me a little speechless, and I busied myself with making the coffee. Supporting the impression of a roguish knight, he appeared dangerous, sexy, and out of place leaning against my kitchen counter. Yet there was something about him that made me feel protected and safe. I couldn’t begin to explain it even if I tried.

  “Don’t be afraid, Holly.”

  I searched his eyes. Finding his unflinching gaze able to meet mine, I handed him a mug of coffee and headed to the living room with my own. I flopped on my thrift-store sofa and crossed my legs, sitting Indian-style. He draped his lean body against a wall across from me, sipping the bitter liquid. A strange thrill coiled deep in my belly.

  “So tell me…where are you from, Arie?”

  “Europe.”

  That explained the accent. “That’s a pretty big place. Where in Europe exactly?”

  His mouth twisted into a smirk. “I’ve moved around a lot.”

  “So you were a military brat?”

  He paused to take a sip of his coffee. “Not exactly. Though my father was a soldier. I find it hard to stay in one place for too long.”

  “But why?”

  “Are you sure you want to know the answer?”

  I gulped and looked down into my mug. Mystic walked lazily into the living room. He stopped a few feet from Arie with his tail sticking straight up and let out a snake-like hiss. Green eyes met gray in some sort of psychological standoff as Arie stiffened and looked with disdain at the cat. Suddenly, Mystic jumped up to a shelf on my bookcase, knocking books and a glass vase—from the bouquet of flowers Mrs. Ellis had given me at graduation—to the floor before bolting down the hall to my bedroom. The vase shattered into pieces of blue glass that scattered across the floor boards.

  Abruptly, the aloof look in Arie’s eyes shifted to one filled with unscrupulous intentions. An impish grin rounded his mouth and without warning he took off like a whirlwind that swept up the broken bits of glass and straightened all the fallen objects. But his movements appeared so fast that they blurred together. When he had returned all the books to their original position, Arie stopped directly in front of me. His lips were so close to mine, I could feel a current that felt almost electric. It beckoned me to meet his lips with my own, and the sentimental vase was forgotten.

  Pursing my lips, I tried to swallow, but my mouth felt like sandpaper. My heart started pounding and I let out a breath that I didn’t realize I’d been holding. I jumped from the sofa, spilling my coffee. A part of me wanted to run, while another part of me felt stuck, my feet glued to the spot. The undeniable allure of sheer chemistry held me, despite my rising fear.

  What are you?

  The sinful heat that pooled in my stomach filled me with a desire like none I’ve ever felt. He moved so fast my eyes couldn’t detect the movement. Now he stood behind me, and without touching me, he leaned in toward my ear, whispering seductively, “Holly, I won’t hurt you.”

  With unsteady feet I stepped backwards, accidentally brushing against his hand with my own. When I did
, a vortex of images spun through my mind of a beautiful woman with long red curls dancing enticingly in a cage. The woman stepped gracefully from its confines and walked across a crowded bar. Arie sat at a table, which she stopped in front of, wearing only her smile and a pair of stilettos. He stood and ushered the redheaded woman to sit next to him in a long black booth. He kissed his way down her throat, biting the skin where he planted kisses, and licking the bites with his tongue. His mouth—there was something wrong with his mouth. Fangs lengthened and bit into the side of her neck. He began to drink her blood. Her lips parted in a smile while her hand trailed up his thigh.

  In a flash the images were gone and I was breathing heavily. A knowing smile traced his lips and I felt relieved when he didn’t comment on my labored breath. It seemed like he knew somehow what had just occurred, but I couldn’t imagine how he would know about the Sight. The Sight worked in pictures, but it didn’t always have sound. It felt like I was watching a movie or television—a bystander on the outside looking in. But this vision felt like drowning and threatened to suck me in and drag me under.

  “You need to sit down. Breathe,” Arie said as he guided me to sit on my sofa.

  “You… What are you?” I said in a whisper.

  “You want to know why I move around. Do you really want to know, Holly?” He brushed his fingers down my neck.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m a vampire.”

  His words might have been more shocking if not for the Sight. I’d seen odd things my whole life and had come to accept things that were unreal to most people, but I couldn’t believe that he was a vampire like I’d seen in so many horror movies. I’d never had conversations with the undead, but I’d had plenty of experiences that showed me there were supernatural things in this world which defied explanation. Still, I couldn’t believe this was happening to me.