It was blissfully pleasant to wake up with a man in the hours of daylight, warm, and able to see his chest rise and fall with deep breaths. I slipped a hand under my pillow and shimmied closer to his sleeping form, listening to his gruff sighs as he exhaled. I would always take a moment whenever I could when Alcide was sleeping to curl up beside him and watch him sleep. I'd never been able to do that before. Anyone I'd ever had the opportunity to sleep alongside had always remained dead literally, while asleep. But I was putting all that aside. I had something good going with Alcide and I didn't want to ruin it by always comparing it to what I was used to in the past.
But I couldn't help it.
I told myself time and time again to bury my past, move on. Enjoy what I had; my home, seeing as I had received the papers to say it was mine again, and especially my life. In the past year or so (which technically to everyone else I knew it was two years or more now where I'd disappeared to Faery plain,) I had been at the mercy of hungry and powerful vampires, werewolves, psychopathic exes, crazed makers, lying boyfriends, amnesiac Vikings, and seriously deranged faerie vampire hybrids. And now all I had to worry about was a few hepatitis V infected vamps? Well bring it on. I had a faerie supernova at my fingertips to defend myself with, something I was quite certain would fry anything allergic to the sun. As much as my past had been full of lies, deception, hurt and betrayal, I'd toughened up considerably and changed a heck of a lot from the sweet naive little girl I used to be.
It was ironic though how I had the wonderful talent of seeing everyone's deepest darkest thoughts, when I couldn't read the minds of those I needed to most. Vampires. Shifters and Weres were different, which I was partially glad about. The only problem was that half the time the colours and moods I detected from them were sometimes accompanied by a one liner, or a small thought that was legible. Usually all I could 'hear' from them was a colour, emotion or noise. But there were times when it was difficult, I couldn't lie to myself about that. For example, I could read Sam's mind as a complete mixture of noises and colours and it was like looking at a mindmap made by children with stickers and paint. Whereas Alcide being a werewolf who could only turn into one thing was more particular with his thought broadcasting. I could often hear sentences, or pictures, but sometimes I could sense smells, emotions from them. It was all very strange but then again, to another telepath, my mind would be one trainwreck that nobody should ever have to see. I zoned back into the literal world.
"Sookie," Alcide spoke much to my surprise with his eyes still closed. "You're watching me again." I smiled and basked in the wondrous smell of man beside me.
"I didn't mean to wake you, sorry" I said readjusting my position to get even closer to him and grab hold of more pillow to tuck under my head.
"Hmm, well you might just have to prove how sorry y'are." He said with one eye open now, a smile on his lips.
"Oh really?" I teased. I liked it when Alcide was playful. A lot of the time, he was. But a lot of the time, he was a very loud broadcaster.
"Yes. Really," He spoke sensually as he placed a large hand on my hipbone and pulled me flush against his own, seizing my mouth with his warm one snaking in his tongue. I reciprocated in kind and ran my free arm up his back to dig my nails into his extremely muscular shoulder.
"Mmm. Good morning to you too," I said happily. I was still getting used to this. Being with a living man, for one, but also the fact that said other wanted to be with me with no hidden agenda or secret. Alcide and I had reconnected in the two months after everything had happened. What with the vampire prison and Warlow incidents, I was just about ready to accept what Alcide was willing to offer me. A normal life.
"How 'bout we make it an even better morning?" Alcide suggested. His hand had never left my hip, and I was starting to feel it push me backwards to lie flat. Well I couldn't say no to sex. It was great, of course it was. I didn't know of anyone who would tell you otherwise. But I felt guilty of using it as my escape from life, the one time I could truly be happy and not give a damn about what was out there in the world after me.
"Oh I don't think you'll be getting the upper hand here mister," I warned him, pushing against his ever lowering hand and coming to kneel on top of him with my knees either side of his waist. I was getting a lovely view of Alcide's naked upper body, and I could only assume from the growing presence underneath me, that he was enjoying the view of me in all my naked glory too. I grinned to myself and leant into his shoulder to kiss his neck and whisper into his ear, "Well cowboy you better join me in the shower, or we'll be late for church." Which certainly got a reaction.
I was whisked along to the bathroom with my legs tightly entwined around Alcide's waist, mouth joined in passionate harmony with his, and for another half an hour we were joined like that until the water ran cold.