Never End Ch. 05

Chapter Five

 

Chapter Five: Admiring

Sookie grumbled to herself while she returned to her desk after going to the vending machine only to be forced to walk clear across the plaza for a bag of pretzels because the machine nearest to her department was out of order. On top of that, she needed to make another appointment to speak with Marla in order to attempt gleaning any possible locations where her husband may have fled. By the time she returned to her desk, her captain, two lieutenants, a detective, and Trent were perched over her work station like a kettle of hovering vultures.

“Who are they from?” Lieutenant Somnar hissed.

“Trent, did she say something to you?” Captain Kleinman asked excitedly.

“It has to be some sort of threat,” Detective Murphy growled.

“Can’t she just be a girl with a boyfriend? Stackhouse is private; she wouldn’t go spouting about a boyfriend to us,” Trent laughed at Murphy’s deduction.

Sookie approached the cluster of men quietly. “What’s going on?”

All five men spun around, returning guilty looks her way while she watched Lieutenant Hartmann try to discretely place a small note card back into a rather impressive vase of red roses.

“Flowers for you,” Murphy grumbled, his eyes widening as Sookie’s face paled instantly. “You don’t know who sent them to you?” he asked in alarm.

Sookie reached out shakily for the note that Hartmann had failed to conceal. “What does it say?”

“Dunno,” all five men mumbled, and looked away, suddenly finding floors, walls, and ceilings more fascinating than the roses on her desk were a few minutes ago.

She would have laughed at their act, but her heart was pounding. Who would send me flowers? Was Murphy right? Is this a threat? She quickly began thinking of all the criminals she had assisted in locking up, wondering who had recently been considered for parole. I need to check my little black book. Rather than listings of old flames, Sookie’s book catalogued several felons with reminders about impending releases.

Bringing the card to her face, Sookie read it quickly, causing her heart to slam frantically against her ribs.

~Not running – E

E?

Her galloping heart hiccuped suddenly, and Sookie’s bloodless face immediately flushed crimson as she understood the meaning of the note. Eric. He was not scared off by her. She was going to spend more time with him. She was going to feel more of him. She was-

Oh My God, Detective Stackhouse is biting her lip! Hartmann thought in alarm.

She’s blushing; Trent’s mind was a burst of surprise.

Dear, God, is she panting? Murphy seemed moderately offended by her reaction.

Good for her, her captain’s thoughts shocked her most of all.

“Er,” Sookie mumbled, fumbling awkwardly with the note, “just… umm…” She did not know what to say. Any word would be too much information. Her face had already been far too telling. Part of her wanted to be angry at Eric for embarrassing her in front of her colleagues, but another side of her argued that the flower arrangement was not over the top. Had she not been such a romantically inept individual, the gesture may not have been so vastly intriguing for her co-workers. Still, even after the congregation around her desk had broken up, Sookie could not look at the vase without flushing timidly.

At the end of the day, Sookie walked out of the precinct with her floral arrangement hugged to her chest and set it gently in her car before calling Eric.

“Northman,” he greeted in his usual fashion although he now knew her phone number when she called.

“The flowers were from you, right?” she blurted out in slight panic.

“Of course they were from me. You do not have a secret admirer I need to hunt down, correct?” Eric laughed.

Sitting in her silent car, Sookie shuffled with the card that had come with her flowers. “They’re very pretty,” she murmured.

“I apologize for having them sent to your office that way. I know you are not open to your private world meshing with your professional world.”

“That’s true, but I can appreciate an occasional gesture like that… One of my colleagues thought the roses were some sort of threat,” she admitted with a chuckle. “Actually, I thought they were for a second, too.”

“Hmm, I suppose ‘Not running’ could be construed as a threat. However, I wanted to assuage your parting remark last night as well as not give away too much information in the note in the event others read it.”

“Oh, they did. You can’t send flowers into a room full of investigators without someone snooping. It’s like putting a pile of sugar next to an ant hill.”

Eric laughed for a bit, “Were you planning on leaving your work parking lot any time soon? You should have been here by now, and I have not even heard your engine start.”

“I should be where by now?”

“Home.”

“Are you at my apartment?” Sookie gasped in surprise.

“I am.”

“Why!?”

“It is Friday.”

Sookie froze for a split-second at the realization that it was, indeed, Friday. Her hands scrabbled for her keys, dropping them twice on the car floor before scraping them into the ignition. “My Bluetooth’s about to kick on,” she warned breathlessly, making the vampire laugh.

“Excited, are we?” he asked once the phone kicked over to her in car speaker.

“Umm,” she mumbled, trying to think of how to respond. She was excited. Terrified, too. What he had done to her the previous night had her body responding strongly to the memory, and she wondered at what degree of arousal Eric would label her in that moment. Personally, she would have been tempted to rub herself at this point were it not for the fact there was an all too willing vampire waiting at her apartment to do that for her. “Shoot!”

“What?”

“I have to take care of Mags and Junes when I get home,” she fretted, passing a truck that had the nerve to go the speed limit and keeping her from being in bed with Eric that much sooner.

“I have already seen to your dogs,” Eric assured. “That trick about cutting a measuring cup to the proper food portion is quite clever. Very simple for someone to feed them in your absence.”

“How did you get in my apartment?” Sookie frowned, remembering that vampires needed to be invited by the resident before they could enter.

“I pick locks, remember?”

“Who invited you?” she clarified.

“I convinced your landlord to do that. There are always tricks to these things and many available opportunities when people reside in apartments.” A cold shiver went down Sookie’s spine at that knowledge. “Have I overstepped?”

“No… Well, yes, but I don’t mind. You’re saving me time that I’d rather be spending with you,” she assured. “Although, I’m thinking I may buy a house now.”

Eric chuckled at that. “I could find you a good deal on a modest two bedroom. I am quite passable in real estate.”

“I’ll think about that… Eric, vampires have a good nose, right?”

“Yes,” he chortled. “Why?”

“Did you smell anyone else in my apartment?”

“Admittedly, your dogs mask a bit of the scent, but I did notice a few old scents… Should they not be here?”

Sookie pondered for a moment, trying to remember the last time she had Gran over. “How old?”

“About two weeks… Maybe a bit longer. As I said, the dogs obscure the scent.” Sookie held her breath a moment. “Should this scent not be here?”

“Is it a vampire scent?” Sookie asked in a whisper.

“It is.”

Exhaling a long breath, she told him, “No, it shouldn’t be there. Why would you think it should be?”

“I thought you might have come in close contact with a vampire on the streets or at work and the scent had lingered. That sort of thing happens from time to time.”

“Not that close a contact,” Sookie grumbled.

“I will deal with it.”

“How?”

“I know this scent. It is not an issue.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. If he were to come again, he would smell me and run for the hills.”

“Is it Compton?”

Eric paused a moment. “No… Why did you believe it was him? How do you know him?”

“I can’t say how I know him, but I thought it was him because he’s been reading several books I’ve recently finished,” she explained. “It made me suspicious.”

“Would they be those Dan Brown books?”

“Yes.”

“They were quite entertaining. A bit too conspiracy theory for my general interest, but good.” Sookie pulled into her parking space and cut her engine. “It seems I will see you in a moment, Lover. Do not keep me waiting long.” Eric hung up the phone and Sookie sat in her car in silence, staring out the windshield as she took a personal inventory of her physique.

She had hit the station’s gym late in her shift and grabbed a shower afterward, so she knew she would smell rather clean. She knew she would be using the gym that day, so she had shaved that morning. Reaching into her glove box she grabbed her tin of Ice Breakers and popped one before looking in the rearview mirror and running her index finger briskly over her teeth to dislodge any plaque that might have accumulated. They were surprisingly smooth considering it was now evening. Pulling out her hair tie, she smoothed out the notch the elastic had created, her hair still slightly damp from her post workout shower. Thankfully, it would dry wavy and not leave a noticeable dent in the flow of her hair.

Taking a deep breath, the young woman grabbed her duffle bag out of the passenger seat and climbed out of her car. When she reached the front door of her apartment, she could barely keep from nearly running full speed up the stairs to her personal residence. Before she could reach for the handle, a sense of unease filled her.

Was she ready to do this with Eric Northman? She had only known him for little more than a week. Of course, she had waited a quarter century to want to do this with any man. Still, part of her insisted on berating her flippant attitude. Quickly, Sookie squashed that concern by reminding herself that Eric had agreed to prolong their arrangement, asserting that their evening would not be the one night stand Sookie had always predicted for her first time.

Just suck it up, Stackhouse! Sookie snapped to herself and opened the door.

Mags and Junes jumped at her excitedly, “My girls!” Sookie squealed as she always did when she returned home, dropping her duffle, and wrapping an arm around the middle of each dog as she nuzzled against their furry bodies.

“They are very well trained,” Eric commented, leaning against her breakfast bar. “How old are they?”

“Seven. They’re sisters,” Sookie told him as Junes lapped under her jaw happily.

“How old were they when you got them?”

“Eight weeks. I got them as a graduation present to myself. I only intended to get one, but they were the last two in their litter. I couldn’t make myself leave one behind.”

“How did you come up with their names?”

“Oh!” Sookie laughed as Mags leaned into her, nearly toppling Sookie. “Magnolia and Juniper. Mags and Junes for short.”

Eric smiled. “Very pretty names.”

“Thanks,” Sookie rose from her crouch and fiddled with her car keys a moment. “So, umm, what do we do now?”

Eric shrugged. “That is up to you. Have you eaten dinner yet?”

“No,” she told him.

“Did you have food here? Would you like me to take you for food?”

“I usually grab take-out on Fridays,” she explained.

“But not tonight?”

Sookie fumbled with her keys some more. “I forgot it was Friday, and then you called and… I was anxious to get home.”

“The good anxious, I hope.”

Sookie smiled bashfully, hiding behind her hair. “Yes, the good anxious.”

Eric returned her smile and closed the distance between them. “Would you like to eat later, then, Ms. Stackhouse?” Sookie nodded slowly, losing herself in his gaze. “Would you like me to take you to your bedroom?”

“Er, it’s kind of a mess,” she admitted in embarrassment.

“I kind of straightened up a little while I was waiting,” he admitted as well.

Sookie took that moment to look around. She noted that her magazines were in a tidy pile on the coffee table that appeared wiped down, and the dishes were done and drying on the rack. Thankfully, Sookie left very few dishes in the sink, usually only from breakfast, and she was extremely grateful that last night had been a ‘clean the bathroom’ night.

“You cleaned my apartment?” Sookie gaped.

“Straightened up. You are quite meticulously clean. I would not have said your bedroom was a mess.” At her expression, the vampire blanched, “And I overstepped again. I promise that I did not actively snoop around your apartment. That is not a reassurance meant in lieu of an apology. I do apologize.”

Sookie tilted her head, absorbing his expression. He seemed uncharacteristically nervous. I make him nervous? Me!? “Oh, then, apology accepted, and, umm, I would like you to take me to the bedroom,” she mumbled.

Eric closed the distance between them and lifted Sookie into his arms before carrying her toward her room down the short hallway. When the dogs tried to follow, Sookie murmured a half-hearted, “Stay,” before Eric captured her mouth with his and closed the door behind them.

Setting her on the bed, Eric promptly stripped off his shirt and tossed it to the floor before reclaiming her lips and leaning her back against the mattress. “I thought you might appreciate me keeping the nudity better balanced this time,” he teased.

“How considerate,” she gasped against his mouth when his hands gently tickled her sides. One of those hands came to tangle in her hair, holding her face steady as he kissed her deeply. “Is this all right, Eric?” she asked tentatively, placing a hand on his chest.

Eric smiled against her mouth. “You may touch me anywhere and however you like, Sookie.”

“I want you to enjoy yourself, too,” she murmured uncertainly.

“They are your hands touching me. I will enjoy myself,” he reassured her.

Empowered by his statement, Sookie let her other hand join her exploration of his torso. She began memorizing the lines of his hard muscles, impressed by the prominence of his obliques more so than his washboard abs where so many gym rats focused.

“What were you when you were human?” Sookie mumbled into his mouth. Eric disengaged their lips to look at her curiously, wondering what had brought that question to her mind. “Your obliques are really toned. I only see that on fitness coaches and body builders.”

Enlightened, Eric chuckled and told her, “I was a Viking. Lots of physical training and battles.”

“Oh,” She pulled his face back to hers, her legs wrapping around his waist while her hand ran from his sternum to his neck and back again.

Surprised that his former life still did not give her any pause for contemplation, Eric returned his focus to kissing her, allowing his own hands to roam over her body. When her curious fingers found his nipple and tugged on it, Eric responded by squeezing her breast with equal force. Sookie hissed into his mouth in response, but he was aware of the pleasure behind the sound.

Frenzied by her passionate noise, Eric grabbed the tail of her shirt and began pulling it from her body, and then reached behind her and unhooked her bra to expose her breasts. His mouth descended on one rosy peak while his hand cupped the other. He paid them far greater attention this evening than he had the previous, and by the time he was kissing down her belly, Sookie was rocking her hips excitedly.

“Oh, yes, please,” she crooned when he loosened her pants and shoved them, along with her panties, off of her legs. He damned her boots when he had to pause briefly to unlace them, but he quickly had her boots and socks tossed across the room. Grabbing her by the ankles, Eric yanked her hips to the edge of the bed and shoved her thighs apart before encasing her womanhood with his mouth, “OH YES!”

Eric bit back a groan as he took his first taste of her that evening. “You are much more aroused than you were when I got to this point last night,” he pointed out.

“Mmm, really?” she asked, tangling her fingers in his hair as she arched against the caress of his tongue.

Eric’s reply was a moan while his tongue wriggled between her folds to taste more of her essence. After getting a momentary fill, he replaced his tongue with a finger, slowly working it into her hole. “Let me know if anything hurts,” he murmured before placing his lips over her clit and sucking it into his mouth. Sookie jerked at the action, but then flinched when her motion drove his finger in too deeply.

“Ah, that kinda hurt,” she told him breathlessly.

Eric frowned slightly at her admission. “That may be slightly problematic.”

“Why?” she asked anxiously.

“Normally I can deflower a woman painlessly. Your hymen seems a bit stubborn,” he laughed slightly. “I am sorry, Lover, but I might not be able to keep all the bite out of it.”

Sookie snorted. “Bite.”

Eric chuckled as well before returning to pleasuring her. Under usual circumstances, he would not have broken a woman’s concentration while he was seeing to her, but Sookie Stackhouse was not quite normal. He had to know his boundaries, especially after breaching boundaries twice already, and he had to make her aware of inevitable little pains. Although she mostly spoke of emotional pain being inevitable for her, he knew that physical ones could cause similar reactions.

Sookie was far too dependent on keeping herself in control, and Eric had to ease her into relinquishing that power to him. It was a line he had to navigate carefully, for it swayed either direction quite drastically depending on the circumstance.

“Do you… Do you, umm, sleep with a lot of virgins?” Sookie asked quietly.

“I have slept with many virgins, but it is not a hobby,” Eric smirked up at her. “Over the course of my existence, fair amounts have crawled into my lap.”

“Is that why you weren’t turned off by me being one?” Her voice was so soft, so uncertain, that Eric felt encouraged to ease her self-consciousness.

Slowing down his movements, Eric began conversationally, “There are perks to bedding virgins. There is extreme pleasure in the wonder they experience learning about their bodies. It is particularly fulfilling if they have had my blood because I can share, marginally, in that wonder.”

“What does your blood do?” she wiggled impatiently at his slow-moving pace.

“It allows me to feel what they feel on a small level. Of course, there are other side effects to our blood.”

“Yeah, it gets people high.”

Eric chuckled, “In certain dosages, yes, but my blood is old and strong. I could feel you with only a drop of my blood in your mouth. I doubt you would approve of me knowing where you are at all times though, or knowing what you feel at all times. I doubt you would want me invading your dreams…”

“You already do,” she whispered.

“Is that so?” He smirked.

“Would that be something…you want?”

Eric’s eyes dilated considerably at the hint of an offer in her voice. “Very much,” he husked in response.

“Just a drop?”

“Just a drop.”

“And it won’t get me high?”

Eric chortled, “No, Lover, you will not get high. It will arouse you further, but that is all.”

“It won’t show up on a drug test, right?”

“Undetectable,” he assured.

“Okay.”

“You are certain?”

“Yeah. If I can’t be good in bed, at least you can enjoy me enjoying myself.”

Eric sighed at her comment, mildly irritated. “Stop that.”

“What?”

“Doubting yourself. You are not unappealing, Sookie. You are beautiful and desirable. You are feisty and strong. At this point, I want to fuck you just so when I fill you with my cum and roar in your ear, you realize how true all of that is!”

Sookie panted at his assertion, not merely because the thought of him cumming inside of her was strangely arousing, but because his irritation with her had subconsciously sped up the movement of his hand. Now he was pumping a second finger into her, and she wriggled against the delicious pressure it had built inside of her.

“Give me your blood, Eric,” she gasped for breath.

Eric moaned at her command. It was the first declarative statement she had made without blushing, stammering, or ‘umm’ing that was related to sex.

Bringing the middle finger of his free hand to his mouth, he unleashed his fangs and lanced the digit, letting it heal and only leaving a droplet of blood on his fingertip. Reaching up her body, he placed his finger in her parted lips, preening when she moaned at his flavor. She suckled his finger rhythmically, not realizing there was no longer a wound from where to draw more blood. While she reflexively swallowed, he felt a blossoming heat in his body as her emotional presence began to flow within him.

Humming to himself as he basked in the new sensations, Eric removed his finger from her lips allowing it to trail down her body until his thumb hovered over her clit. The adroit digit quickly found pace with the fingers pumping inside of her, and he felt her inner walls flex threateningly around him.

“Ah, ah,” Eric chastised, “you cannot cum yet.”

Sookie whimpered when he ceased stimulating her clit. “Why not?” she whined.

“Because I need to get one more finger in here before you tighten up like that,” he told her with taunting nibbles along her thigh.

“I don’t think another one’s gonna fit,” she panicked. “I already feel full.”

“You need to take three before I can put my cock in here, Sookie.”

“Why?” She wriggled, but Eric could feel her discomfort as a third finger tried to bargain its way inside of her.

“Because otherwise my cock will not fit comfortably for you,” At the terrified jolt in his connection with her, Eric smiled and soothed her, “Do not worry, Lover, it will fit. I know what I am doing, remember?” He placed his mouth over her clit and began suckling it slowly, rhythmically, until he felt her walls give in to his third finger. Once they were rocking painlessly inside of her, he sped up his tempo and murmured, “Now you can come,” as he brought her to a swift, hard orgasm.

“Ah,” Sookie choked on her cry, digging her short nails into his scalp.

While she rode out her climax, Eric quickly removed his pants, and then built a good amount of saliva into his mouth to spit onto the fingers pumping into her. The motion worked the fluid deep inside her hole, but Eric did not do this for the unnecessary lubrication. Aside from coagulants, vampire saliva also had mild anesthetic properties that would alleviate the pinch of her hymen rupturing.

As the flexing of her internal walls began to abate, Eric slid the head of his cock against her entrance above his immobilized fingers.

“Last chance to change your mind, Sookie,” Eric murmured.

Sookie shook her head as she bit down on her lip. “Uh uh! Do it!”

Chuckling, Eric slowly withdrew his fingers while replacing their absence with his hard member. He watched Sookie’s face scrunch up at the sensation, and listened while her heart accelerated with excitement.

“That’s not much bigger than your fingers,” she reasoned.

“This is the narrowest part,” he warned, resisting a laugh when her hands clenched in the bedding apprehensively. “Just get used to this, Sookie,” he encouraged, rocking back and forth, penetrating her shallowly, and enjoying the short little moans she made in rhythm with his movements. “This is not so scary, right?” She shook her head, assuring him that it was not frightening at all.

“Can you go any deeper?” she asked quietly.

“Much deeper, but that is the part that could hurt for a little bit. Are you ready for that?” he asked carefully.

Sookie nodded, reaching her arms around his neck to pull his mouth to hers. Obliging her silent request to be kissed, Eric tangled his tongue with hers, letting Sookie become lost in the carnal movements of their bodies before shifting his weight to push deeper inside of her. When his girth stretched her, he felt Sookie’s hips instinctively jerk back, but his hands were there, holding them in place while he drove past her maidenhead, refraining from slamming in to the hilt.

Her knees clamped tightly around his hips, keeping Eric still as she gasped against his mouth. “I will be still, Lover. You can relax. Are you all right?”

Sookie nodded slowly. “It didn’t hurt too much. It was more like pressure… I don’t know how to describe it,” she admitted. The sensation had caused an impulsive reaction in her heart, like falling through ice or missing a step on the stairs. Neither of those things hurt, but her heart and lungs reacted as though she could have died.

“It is all right, Sookie. There is no need to cry,” Eric’s thumb brushed just beneath her eye, and she felt the chill of the moisture there being swept away.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I don’t know why-”

“Shh,” Eric could recognize her relief far better than she could. “It was not as terrifying as you thought it would be. You are relieved. That is all. Eighteen years of nightmares about this moment, and it was not scary at all,” he crooned in her ear, kissing her cheek.

A single deep sob broke past her lips and Sookie hugged him tighter to her body. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to keep crying.”

“I know,” He smiled into her hair. “I also know why you are doing it, and that is fine. You can cry if it is what you need.”

“No,” she sniffed, “I think I need you to move.”

Eric smirked. “In or out?”

“You can go deeper?” she gasped.

In a moment of comedic relief, Eric reached between their bodies and felt the remainder of his shaft not yet buried inside of her. “I have about another four inches I can give you.”

Sookie’s eyes widened at his confession. “Yes, please?”

Grinning down at her, Eric eased the remainder of the way inside of her, feeling her panic and slight flinch when he filled her entirely.

“Did that hurt?” he asked in concern, reaching between their bodies to play with her clit. It had not felt as though he struck her cervix. She had seemed so soft and compliant that he believed her body would stretch properly. Still, he instinctively stimulated her clit to fuel her arousal and soften her womb to his advances. Sookie rolled her hips in response to the attention.

“Uh uh,” she shook her head, “just different. I kinda jumped ’cause I expected it to hurt when you were all the way in. I didn’t think it would all fit without hurting.”

“I told you to trust me,” Eric teased, pulling his hips back slowly, and then rocking them back and forth before filling to the hilt once more.

“Ohh!” she let out a deep moan at the collision. “Do that again!” He did so and she choked, “mmm, again!” He pulled back a little further than before and he felt her walls flex around him and she shouted, “Oh! Right there!”

Laughter in his voice, Eric told her, “You are quite sensitive, you know? Already you can feel my thickest portion in the right spot even though my dimensions are quite consistent. Your tight, little pussy can feel everything!” He began rocking his hips in short movements, dragging the thickest part of his member against the most sensitive part of her entrance. After a few moments she was sobbing and wiggling beneath him. Her hands reached for him, feeling every part of his body they could reach while her knees hugged his hips. Eventually her hands discovered his rear, and she grasped it earnestly as she bucked, rocked, and rolled her hips.

She was driving him mad, from the vice-like walls to the telling flutters, from the scorching heat to the flood of juices. He felt as if he would burst into flames inside of her and be perfectly content meeting his true end so long as it was with his cock buried all the way in her depths.

“Eric, Eric, I-I’m,” he felt a glimmer of panic in her and this surprised him.

“You can cum, Lover,” he whispered. “I am right there with you.”

With a passionate wail, her back arched off of the bed, and her hands squeezed his ass so that her stubby nails left short lived crescents in his flesh. As she cried out, Eric buried his face in her throat, resisting the urge to bite and cause a mutual exchange. Instead, he snarled violently and thrust recklessly within her as he felt his body release and drain into her inviting channel.

As she sucked in air greedily, Eric peppered her flesh with kisses. “I will be sending you flowers every day for that, Lover,” he murmured between the caresses of his lips. “Please say you agree to only be with me. You would destroy any man less capable than me!”

Sookie giggled at his words, holding him tightly to her body. “If you stay right here for a while, I might let you be with me again in a bit.”

“I will stay buried in you until dawn if it means having you again,” he assured.

Sookie rolled her eyes. “C’mon, it couldn’t have been that good for you. Unless you’re actually talking about how you were feeling what I feel, ’cause then you’d be feeling yourself… So maybe it was that good… It was pretty spectacular for me.”

“Absolutely ignorant about yourself! That is what you are!” Eric accused playfully. “The only human woman I have fucked that was as responsive as you, I had to train for damned near a decade to become that way.”

Eyebrows shooting towards her hairline, Sookie gaped and asked, “You can teach someone to be responsive?”

“Of course. It is all about sensitivity training, but your body is already quite sensitized. It is a miracle you get anything done at all.”

“Oh, well… I’m not used to being touched. My telepathy is stronger when I’m touching someone. Unbearable a great deal of the time,” she explained. “That’s why I got my dogs before I moved to Shreveport. I can hug them when I’m feeling alone and they curl up with me at night. They sit with me on the couch,” Sookie shrugged as she explained. “Gran’s the only person I’ve ever let hug me, and she wasn’t coming with me to Shreveport.”

“What about your brother?”

“Oh, God, no!” Sookie made a face. “His mind is all sorts of ‘nope’. I would probably gag if he hugged me just because of what he would be thinking about.”

Eric chuckled, but also pondered her response. “How do you think your life would be different if you were not born a telepath?”

Sookie shrugged. “I have no way of knowing. That’s like asking me how I think my life would be different if I were born blind.”

“Good point,” Eric nodded. “What do you think you would do if you woke up tomorrow and were no longer telepathic?”

“That’s the same question. I have no way of knowing, and no reason to speculate. It’s only gotten stronger as I’ve gotten older. I have serious doubts it’ll just disappear after all this time.”

“It has gotten stronger?”

“Yeah, my range for familiar voices grew larger. I actually have to focus to find someone farther off though. I can delve into memories a bit now, but only memories linked to the current thought.”

“Explain, please.”

Sookie sighed as she thought about how to describe her abilities. “Okay,” she began, “there are key words you can say to someone that link several memories together that are unrelated, except by that word. Sometimes those key words open tandem memories too. Like, if I said cookies, and the person I’m investigating thinks of their mother baking cookies, which is linked to a memory of the oven, linked to being burned, to burning houses, to burning someone inside of a house, to killing their wife, to their wife ranting that he lost another job, to…. You see how deep it can get from the word ‘cookies’?” she asked. “The subject isn’t thinking about all these things. They’re just thinking about cookies, but all of those memories are linked either in tandem like I just described, or by the single word. So if I said cookies and they thought about Girl Scout cookies, cookies and cream, or Cookie Monster, any memories linked either by tandem or parallel are available to me. Parallel is better because it’s easier to sift through than tandem. Tandem can tell me more, but it takes a long time to go through all of the branches. It would be super obvious something was up with me if I followed tandem memories very often.” Sookie wiggled slightly against her partner and draped her leg over his hip as he rolled them onto their sides. “Sometimes I use both together. I’ll start with a parallel, and if there’s a distressing parallel word, I’ll follow the tandem memories. Like if I’m interviewing a guy about a child abduction, and the first parallel he draws off of “cookies” is Girl Scout cookies, sometimes I might follow the tandem memories of the Girl Scout to see if he has inappropriate memories of little girls.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“It can be,” she admitted. “Of course, I don’t usually have to get that in depth. Most of the time, people see a badge, and the first thing they do is think about all the things they’ve done wrong to receive a visit from us, or a visit to the station.” She laughed at a few memories of such incidents.

They lay together on their sides, hands caressing one another’s bodies in silence, listening to the dogs in the living room fighting over who got to lay on the end of the couch Sookie usually leaned against.

“Can I ask you something about sex?” Sookie murmured after a few minutes.

“You may ask me anything you wish,” he encouraged.

Biting her lip, she blushed and asked, “How often can we do this?”

Eric smirked, “As often as you like. I could come to your apartment every night after you get home from work and before I go to Fangtasia. I could fuck you until you need to get ready for bed. Hell, I will feed and walk your dogs every night just so I can have you that much sooner!”

“Do you think we could walk my dogs together?”

Eric’s smirk softened into a smile, “Anything you want, Sookie.” He glanced away, seeming almost shy himself before saying, “Friday night to Sunday night… You could spend at my place, just so I would not have to leave you before the dawn comes.”

“What about my dogs?”

“I do not mind if you brought them, so long as they do not piss all over my house. But, they seem like well trained animals, and I have my doubts they would inconvenience me so.”

“They wouldn’t. They’re real ladies.”

“I have a house on a little over an acre of land. They would have plenty of room to run around, assuming you trust them to come back when they are called.”

“They would,” she murmured. “What about Fangtasia?”

“What about it?”

“Aren’t you, like, an attraction there or something? Shouldn’t you be there on the weekends?”

“I own the bar, Sookie, and it is hardly my only means of income. I could close it tomorrow and replenish the losses in a fortnight.”

“Are you serious?” She gaped in surprise.

“Dead serious.”

She rolled her eyes at his pun. “So, you’d let me stay in your house with you on the weekends? Are you sure you trust me to be there during the day when you’re vulnerable?”

“Who better to protect me while I rest than a woman who is an off duty detective packing a Glock 22?” he countered.

“What if I’m just trying to lull you into a false sense of security and snoop around your house for evidence?” she teased.

Eric’s eyes narrowed playfully. “I guess I would just have to trust that you care more about how well I can fuck you than you care about the law.”

“What are laws again?”

He grinned at her reply and kissed her forehead happily. “Does that mean you will come back to my house with me?”

“Tonight?”

“Yes, please,” he mimicked her usual response to offers she desperately wanted.

“I’d have to take my car in case I get called in,” she warned him.

“Understandable.”

“Okay,” she murmured, but he could feel her hesitation.

“Sookie, I am not trying to make you uncomfortable. We do not have to go back to my house this evening. We could wait a few weeks, and try when you are more at ease,” he suggested.

“N-no,” she shook her head. “I want to go tonight.”

“Are you certain?”

“Can I ask another question?”

“Of course.”

“Where am I going to sleep?”

Eric’s brow furrowed. “With me, of course.”

“Will it be comfortable…? For you?”

“Sookie,” Eric sighed, “I am inviting you to spend the weekend at my house. I would not put you in a guest bedroom when you could just as easily set the whole building ablaze and kill me that way if it were your intention.”

“Okay, just let me pack some stuff,” she said, squirming away from him and finally dislodging his semi-hard member. Sookie froze momentarily when she caught her first ever glimpse of his maleness, while trying to ignore that it was streaked with blood. “Th-that fit in me?”

Glancing down at his groin, Eric smirked, and then looked back at her. “It was even bigger than this when I was fucking you.”

“Really?” she asked in amazement.

“Yes, really,” he laughed.

“Can I see it like it was when we get to your house?”

“Definitely,” he agreed.

Sookie nodded absent-mindedly as she rolled off of the bed and grabbed some clothes from her dresser. She picked out a pair of pajama shorts and a tank top. After all, she was only going to her car.

“Lover, you should put on some panties as well,” Eric suggested while he climbed out of bed as well.

“Why? I’m just going to my car. No one will notice,” she said, distractedly looking for her bra she had worn earlier. As she bent over to pick it up, she felt a large quantity of fluid trickle down her thigh. Reflexively she cupped herself and quickly checked her hand, unable to comprehend the combination of fluids that had pooled in her palm. “What the..?”

Eric nipped her shoulder as he walked past her and into her panty drawer. Returning to her side, he dipped his finger into the fluids on her hand and pressed it into her mouth. “It is me,” Her eyes dilated at the flavor on her tongue, tasting the tinge of his blood that came through in his semen. “And you,” he added as an afterthought.

“We taste good,” she whispered.

Taking her wrist in his hand, he licked her palm without thinking. “Yes, we do,” It was only when he felt the emotional link he had with her strengthen that the vampire realized he had consumed the blood of her torn hymen, accidentally cementing a first mutual blood exchange. He swore internally for the mistake. He would need to be extremely careful from this point onward. Regardless, he needed to explain about mutual exchanges, and where they could lead.

On to Chapter Six