Sookie was utterly exhausted. Every muscle radiated a delicious ache. Curled up against Eric's chest, soaked in sweat and chill against his skin, she was ready to slide into the serene sleep of fresh love. Eric stared at the ceiling, one hand tucked behind his head and the other tracing patterns on Sookie's back. His eyes were lidded like a drowsing cat. He could hardly have been more pleased with himself.

"Mmmm," Sookie snuggled up closer to Eric. "That was… well that was just amazing."

"Which time?" Eric murmured into her hair.

"Do I have to choose?"

Eric chuckled. "Well I for one particularly enjoyed the part when you seemed to be hyperventilating,"

"Well that's not very nice," Sookie propped herself up on her elbow to look into his eyes.

"Oh, how wrong you are," Eric smiled. "It was very nice. You don't have the slightest concept of how sexy you are, do you?"

"Are you kidding? You know how much easier my life would be if every vampire I met didn't look at me and see Marilyn Monroe singing them 'Happy Birthday'?"

Eric chuckled again, and rolled over onto his forearms, pinning Sookie beneath him. "Hardly. Her charms were very overrated, if you ask me." He tucked a lock of hair away from her eyes, musing. "Like a rabbit in the road, that girl – no fight or fire in her, like my feisty little Sookie." His eyes flicked from Sookie's gaze to her lips and back. His mind began to wander away from their conversation and back toward the activities of the last four hours.

"You knew Marilyn Monroe?" Sookie's eyes widened.

"Only well enough to know I wasn't missing too much." Mischief snapped in his eyes. "I had her over for dinner once or twice - but I daresay she would not have…remembered me." There was something alarmingly familiar about that smile, but it took Sookie a minute to put her finger on it.

"Gosh. I guess I don't ever think about what it means to –" Her body went rigid. Eric pretended not to notice as he bent and kissed her ear, sliding her arms above her head and settling his hands on her wrists as he licked the fresh puncture wounds on her neck. When she spoke again her voice was as taut as the muscles in her stomach which had just bunched up.

"Eric. How do you suddenly have fifty-some-odd-year-old memories?"

"hmmm?" He was still absorbed in the work at hand.

"Eric. Eric!" Her voice jumped several octaves when she tried to jerk away and found his hands locked around her wrists like granite.

He drew back and looked at her. "Your friend Tara should be a therapist. Really, she's quite good."

"What!" She writhed in his grip as he smiled at her. "Eric Northman, you'd better let me go right now, or so help me God –"

"I will let you go. After I explain."

"Holding me down naked while you're explaining's not exactly going to help win me over, Eric. Let me go. Right now!"

"Why are you so angry?"

"You tricked me! Let me go!" She continued to struggle beneath him, which accomplished little but to rouse his amusement.

"You mean you're only interested in the Eric Northman who doesn't even remember his own name, and not the one who's saved your life a half a dozen times? Ouch, Sookie."

"Oh give me a break. You're not hurt. You have to have feelings for them to be hurt. And if you've ever saved my life, it was only so you could use me again later on. I don't have a reason in the world to trust you."

His hands tightened suddenly on her wrists as he lowered the full length of his body onto her tossing form. He leaned in close to her ear and whispered, "Stop. The way you're moving is… distracting." He rocked his hips against her for emphasis, and she stilled, breath catching in her throat.

He drew back and looked into her eyes. "You're wrong on all counts. You do have a reason to trust me: I have only ever lied to you once –about that rune you found on that werewolf- and I gave you the truth almost immediately. Compare that with the lies Bill told you. Have you even counted them all? He lied to you repeatedly to protect himself, to manipulate your emotions. The only time I ever did it was to protect my hunt for the vampire who killed my family."

"You think comparing yourself to Bill is going to win you the honesty of the year award? You left us both for dead at Russell Edgington's house, and then you turned me over to him. You locked me up in that crazy dungeon of yours. You think I'm just going to forget that?"

"If you have a failing, Sookie Stackhouse, it's that you've relied so heavily on your telepathy that you have failed to develop any intuition whatsoever. Did it even occur to you that I was powerless to dispossess a 3,000 year-old vampire of his new toy? At best, he would have recaptured you and lost his trust in me, which was my sole weapon against him. As for turning you over to him, he would have had you one way or another. I am sorry to have used you as bait. It was the only way to destroy him and to save you. Hopefully you will eventually see that."

Sookie was speechless, just staring up at Eric. After a moment he released her wrists and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. This wasn't nearly as fun as he thought it was going to be. She really was very hurt: he could sense it. And it made him far more uncomfortable than he could have predicted. Her discomfort would only be disconcerting to him if he had feelings for her – if he actually did care deeply about her. But she only seemed to loathe him.

Which made him almost as angry as realizing how deeply he cared about her.

"When were you going to tell me you had your memory back?" She scooted back until she was leaning against the wall, drawing the sheets around her.

"I just did."

"You know what I mean! You manipulated me. I can't believe I even helped you." She threw back the sheets and grabbed her bathrobe, flinging it around her as quickly as she could manage. But Eric was in front of her before she could get to the door.

"Don't act so self-righteous. It's unflattering. You may have had conflicted feelings about me for some time, but you know you do have feelings for me. You just won't allow yourself to experience them." As he spoke he advanced several paces on her, and she backed up until she bumped against the wall.

She was furious. And conflicted. And… she wasn't sure what else. Was this relief she was feeling that Eric had his memories back? That he was himself again? Had she picked up on that somehow before they'd made love and refused to acknowledge it? No, that wasn't possible. But the way his eyes were fuming… She clung to furious, for the moment. Furious was good. But it was shock which overcame her when Eric suddenly pressed against her and kissed her. Deeply, passionately. She was so shocked, in fact, that she found herself responding to him, yielding to his hand, one at the small of her back pulling her forward against him, the other circling her neck as he kissed her. Her breath was coming short, everything was going black and red again. No!

She drew back and slapped him, taking a gulp of air, trying to make her head stop spinning. Where was she? Oh yeah, furious.

"Feelings for you? Sure, I have feelings for you. I hate your guts, Eric Northman. You're conniving and heartless and cruel. You enjoy watching others suffer. I could never love someone like that."

Eric's temper shot up, and it was all he could do to keep it leashed. He could only try to reciprocate, and hope that Sookie's control was somewhat less than his own. The plaster creaked as he pressed his hand into the wall by Sookie's face, leaning close in to play his trump card.

"Maybe things have moved a little too quickly for you to properly assess the difference in you since you the first night you walked into Fangtasia," he began in a quiet and deadly tone, "but I see it, even if you do not. What was it you said when I asked you how the crystal urn carrying Edgington's dead lover had been cleaned out? Oh yes. 'I poured that motherfucker down the garbage disposal.' I believe those were your exact words, were they not?" Sookie's mouth fell open, and she felt herself sinking into her heels. The storm in Eric's blue eyes flashed as he continued. "I can assume you were not playing good Samaritan and helping Ginger clean up? That you rather enjoyed watching Edgington's face as you... disposed of the love of his life?" The corner of his mouth twitched into a smile at the pun.

Sookie's hands clenched into fists as the blood rose to her face. "How dare you use that against me! You know exactly-"

But she never finished. Eric grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her to him, locking his mouth onto hers, the switch of his tongue sending sparks up her spine. His hand pulled her waist back toward him, and this time she did not protest. He rocked against her, and the flames of her anger quickly began to smolder into flames of another kind entirely. She was beginning to see stars again. She shoved against him.

"No- "

But she barely pulled in a breath before he pulled her to him again. His hands were everywhere, and her resolve melted. She wanted him. As he was. Maybe they weren't so different anymore after all… Hadn't she told Bill not so long ago that she was meeting him halfway to vampire? And that was the last rational thought she had for awhile.

In one deft movement Eric lifted her off the floor and against the wall, opened her robe and drove into her. It was a piercing, delicious pain, none the less exquisite for being the fifth time that evening. After all, it was like being with a whole other man.

As waves of pleasure rolled through her, he pressed his lips against her ear and whispered, "Sookie. You. Are. Mine."

Something buzzed vaguely in the back of Sookie's mind: she was going to regret this at some point. At the moment, however, all she could manage was a helpless nod.