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Chapter Seven

Personal space? Who really cares?

Neck kissing slowly turns into something more, and I wasn't doing my bit in discouraging it. I'm already in over my head. I'm knee-deep in trouble.

He's pushing me up against the car, and before I know it, my arms are wrapping around his neck, and he is bringing his cold hands up to grasp at my chin to hold me in place. He tilts his head to the side, and then for some reason, I'm moaning and whimpering, and it's giving his tongue entrance. I let the tip of mine tentatively stroke his, meeting him halfway, and it isn't all that bad at all. It's quite... enjoyable.

I realize, I want this man. I want him to do things to me that I haven't ever experienced yet. I desperately want this vampire, who is known to be unpleasant and dangerous, and it appears he desperately wants me, too. And, truth be told, that was more frightening than any rumour of him. I never dreamed a man would want me, sexually. Especially not a vampire, no less.

It goes on for what feels like a lifetime, until he pushes away from me and fades off into the darkness. All I can hear is his breathing, and mine, and maybe my heart thumping away, and the tingles infecting my body again.

"You know, I never even knew vampire's could do it," I say timidly, still hazy underneath the swarm of feelings overcoming me. "That's how far my ignorance extends."

He gives out a shaky laugh. I'm very pleased to know he is just as affected as I am. "Do what?"

"You know... sex." There, I've said the word. Yet again. I think I've broken my own track record when talking about things like sex.

"That would suck the fun out of being a vampire, if you couldn't," he says, sounding horrified at the idea of going without sex. He kind of already has- for two hundred years, if that was what he was getting at, anyhow. "We vampires are particularly known to be the best lovers." Something tells me he's trying to score brownie points over it. "Passionate, primal, and intense. I bet I could make you feel fucking great. How would you say your sex is with a human, on a scale of one-to-ten?"

Oh Lordy. He did not just ask me that!

"I'd say zero." It beats having to reveal the truth of the range of my inexperience.

"Zero?" he repeats, outraged.

This was the strangest conversation; Talking so openly about sex, and my lack thereof. Well, both of our lack for it, really.

I squirm uncomfortably. It's obvious he isn't going to let this topic slide by.

"What the fuck do you mean by zero?"

"Zero, as in I have no sex life to speak of, Mister." There, I've said it.

"Well, how long has it been since you have?"

I don't answer that; I hardly feel it's any of his business.

"Tell me," he commands. "Don't be so fucking coy. It's been two hundred years for me. How long? Two years, for you, maybe?"

"Two years," I scoff, insulted.

"Now that's what I thought it was." He grunts to himself in the dark. Obviously we've reached another misunderstanding... "Well, when you did have sex with a human two years ago, how did you find it? Was he up to snuff? Did he grant you pleasure?"

And then, I've downright had enough, as far as feeling invaded and embarrassed goes. I collect my purse off the hood, and attempt to scoot over to the door of my car. And then, just like that, he is all up into my personal space again.

"Well?"

"This isn't something I feel much like talking to you about, buddy," I mutter, putting it lightly.

"It's a simple fucking question."

"No, it isn't." I'm acting so ashamed by this. What's the big deal? Straighten your shoulders, Stackhouse, I tell myself sternly. "I wouldn't know how to rate a guy in the bedroom department, and I certainly wouldn't know about sex and pleasure."

"So, it was that bad that it was practically forgettable?" he asks, confused, misunderstanding me yet again. Did I really have to spell it out to him? Good Lord!

"I have a non-existent sex life, and I don't have sex, all right?"

"Never?" he whispers, shocked.

"Never." Something tells me I need a flashing neon-sign planted on my forehead, with 'Virgin' on it. "I don't have sex, and I've never done it."

You can almost feel the excruciating silence on his end. "You're a virgin." He says it so sympathetically, like he is doing me a kindness in voicing it in that light. "Is that what you're trying to say?"

"Yes, that is exactly what I am trying to say!" Finally. I almost feel like dancing in glee. He's hit the mark on the head!

"How is that possible?"

"Well, I guess, I've been very... reluctant. Since I can hear most human's thoughts, I don't exactly want to be in the middle of sex, and then getting a rude awakening when I hear that they're thinking about some other girl while being with me."

"Couldn't you still just do it, anyway?"

"Sure, I could have," I sigh heavily. I certainly could have; But it would have taken away my enjoyment, and I at least wanted to enjoy it, being my first time. "But then, it would feel as though I was cheating myself, in a sense. If the guy gets to enjoy it, then why can't I?"

"Couldn't you just ignore their fucking thoughts, and get it over with? Who says you mightn't still enjoy it?"

"Right." I laugh dubiously. "And would you be able to ignore your Godric, if say, he appears to you every five minutes while you're trying to do it?"

"No, I definitely couldn't..." He groans. "That's the problem. He interferes with my concentration with all of his Gandhi bullshit."

"Well, there you go. Now you know how I feel." I turn on my side to open the door of my car. One of his hands mysteriously pop up on my back from behind me. I don't know how he moves so fast, but he just did. It's a vampire thing, I'm presuming.

"You say you are unable to hear vampire's thoughts with this little gift of yours," he begins, sounding very thoughtful. I can almost hear his brain working overtime. He's thinking something through very deeply, speculating. "Therefore, you cannot hear mine. Is that correct?"

"Yes, siree," I breathe, confused. What's his point?

"You continue to go on about a certain silence. It is a silence that I give you, when being around you. Correct?"

"Yes, that's true." And the silence was amazing. I no longer felt as if I had tension bouncing around my skull while attempting to put my guard up. The silence around him was, quite simply... orgasmic.

"And Godric may not appear to me..." His voice is extremely husky against my right earlobe, and he runs his hand slowly down the centre of my back, a bit like a caress. I almost shiver; The coldness of his fingertips seeps through the material of my shirt, chilling my skin. He gives out a big, old wistful sigh, fanning his breath over the side of my face. He must be super close to me, then, and realising that, it doesn't exactly make me feel over-the-moon. "The incentive has changed, and it may be more than enough for my father."

I get those odd feelings like before, the ones I felt when he was kissing my neck; The strange tingling sensations. His closeness and that deep, needy voice breathing in my ear, it sends the tingling straight down there. And that tingling was dangerous; I could very well do some things I might come to regret later.

"Yield to me," he moans, a bit like a man pleading for water, after a forty-mile marathon. And his breathing is much the same; Urgent, shallow, and uneven. You'd think he'd just made it back from a very arduous hike. "I will give you silence, and pleasure, and your repayment will be in giving me the pleasure I haven't had in over two hundred fucking years."

Everything is quaking around me- the gravel underneath my shoes, my car, my body- and not entirely in a bad way. This is finally it. I've finally met a man I want to actually have sex with. And he is hardly what you could call a normal man; He is a vampire, and an apparently well-known, ruthless one at that. My breathing alters, as he runs his hand down my back again, a bit like I'm a fluffy kitten he is stroking. I want this man. I want all of him. And that is frightening- more than any rumours I could hear about him, or those fangs.

I actually want my first time to be with somebody like him, and it leaves me feeling incredibly shaken. Those feelings inside me, all the tingling, and exhilaration to just let go and do something naughty with him, slowly chugs into fear and unease.

I want this man, and I've never wanted something like this before so much in my entire life.

My knees threaten to buckle out from underneath me. I'm in fight or flight mode.

"Look, I've got to go," I say, wrenching open the door to my car; my voice coming out small and scared.

"What?" he asks loudly, sounding extremely pissed-off. Well, too bad. "You cannot be fucking serious! Yield to me... I..." He stops abruptly, and I hear him growl, very irritated, "Oh, fuck off, Godric! Not now!" Oh. Godric's back again. "What will you have me do about this? What?"

"You'd have to meet my Grandmother," I say, surprising myself that I would even contemplate it. Where did that suggestion even come from? A deep, deep part inside of me, clearly.

"What?"

"You'd have to meet my Grandmother," I say again, loudly. "If that even was me you were talking to then, and not Godric. What will you have to do? Well, you can start by meeting my Gran, and making yourself look all nice and decent for her, and not much like that scary vampire you were on television."

"But I don't meet human's families."

"Well, then. I can't help you with this... sex thing." All right. I'm definitely breaking my record.

"You will let me have sex with you, if I meet your fucking Grandmother?"

"Well, yes." Jesus. What am I saying?

"Agreed, then." I wasn't expecting that. "I will come tomorrow, and meet your Grandmother. And then, we will rectify our situation." Oh, here he goes about our situation again.

"All right. Deal." But then, as I get down the road in my car, I realize I've done an incredibly thoughtless and stupid thing. What am I doing? But it was too late. And besides, who am I kidding? Maybe I wanted sex with him. Who wouldn't?


"I don't know about this, Sookie, dear," my Grandmother says, once I've given the idea to her next evening. She's thinking Eric Northman will be as unpleasant as he was a few days ago, on live television.

"Gran, he's not that bad," I assure her, sweetly. "And I really would like you to meet him, and to see that first-hand for yourself." He's just a troubled, misunderstood vampire. I'm sure once Gran met him in the flesh, she would come to realize he wasn't all that terrible.

She gives me an odd look, one I can't quite understand, as I dab on some lipstick.

"Sookie, you like this vampire?" she asks, sounding convinced. And slightly worried, also. "I don't know, dear." Her small body is screaming with reluctance. "I just don't know. He seems very... brutal, if that interview was anything to go by. He doesn't appear as if he likes human's at all. Just be careful, won't you?"

"Well, Gran, it's a bit too late to cancel it," I tell her apologetically. "It's already a done deal." I peer over at the clock in the living room; I've always loved Gran's clock on the wall. It's shaped like a cat, and it even has whiskers. Very funky. "And it's already six-thirty. It's already sun-down. He'll probably be coming here in a few minutes." Or a few seconds, more like it. The instance I say it, there's a foreboding knock on the front door.

Gran jolts a fraction on the couch, and gulps. She clutches her chest with her wrinkly hands.

"Gran, it'll be fine."

"I don't know, Sookie. I just don't-"

Another loud knock.

We look into the hallway for a second before I stand up to go answer the door. Gran is positively fluttery with nerves. Reassuring her didn't help one bit; She was still stuck on that television interview, and how vicious he seemed to be. Luckily, I had faith that he wasn't vicious. Surely, it was all just for show, right?

I open the door, and he turns from peering out into Gran's long yard to look at me.

Instantly, my stomach sinks. I'm not quite sure why I feel so disappointed, but I do. Maybe it's because he looks so positively vampirish this evening, and sinful as all hell. I just automatically assumed he would understand since I haven't met any vampires, my Grandmother would be caught in the same pickle. I would have expected him to show up to meet my Grandmother looking nice, and harmless, in a tuxedo like the one he wore on live television. What I got instead, was a very menacing outfit. He is wearing the tightest jeans I think I've ever seen a man wear, and they are all holey at the knees and black. He also is wearing a tight, sleeveless shirt- black, naturally- with the very charming slogan on the front in red writing: 'Blood Donors Needed'. We spend a moment eyeballing each other's outfits, and it becomes obvious to me he dressed this way on purpose to annoy me. Was it too much to ask that he look nice, and unlike a vampire, just for one evening? At least, the fangs were away. But I had gone all-out; In the special blue dress I wear on rare occasions, and a light yellow cardigan. Plus, I put on tons of make-up for him; Including rouge, and red lipstick.

I shake my head at him sadly. I do not get the choice of outfit at all.

"What?" he asks, raking a hand through his slicked back hair, a bit self-consciously. Well, hey. At least his hair's neat for the occasion.

"I can't believe you," I manage, once I'm able to find my voice again over the intense anger I feel. "Is it possible for you to try not to look so..." I trail off, uncertain on how to put it.

"Sexy?"

"No, that's definitely not the word I'm looking for."

"Attractive, then?"

"Nope. Definitely not that, either."

"Fuck-worthy?"

I flap my arms around helplessly. I feel like wringing his neck. "Like a vampire, is more what I'm searching for here, buddy."

His lips twitch. "Do you forget?" He spreads his big hands out in front of him. "This is what I am. This is what I was made into. I don't see any fucking point in hiding it. This is me; take it or leave it!" His eyebrows pinch together. I've insulted him.

"Oh, I'm sorry, honey. You go ahead and wear whatever you like, just please be nice in front of my Grandmother. You mightn't scare me much, but you'll certainly scare her. So please, watch yourself." I can't seem to get anything right. I always seem to be offending him somehow, without even knowing I've done it.

"Honey?" he repeats quietly, looking like I've just swatted him over the head.

"I call everybody that, mostly. I don't mean... nothing by it." I swear, he was a hard one not to offend. He just feels defensive about everything, obviously.

"For the record, my name is Eric. Not 'Honey', or 'Mister'. And 'Buddy'... well, that isn't even close."

I try not to roll my eyes. "All right, Eric."

"Good. I'm just making that very clear on you, Perky Blood-bag."

Perky Blood-bag? Now it's my turn to feel like I've been swatted on the side of my head. "What did you just go calling me?"

He looks as if he is trying his mighty hardest not to laugh. His eyes glisten with humour. "You heard me. You know what I said."

"I sure did, but I do not appreciate being called that!"

"Then call me by my name, and I will call you by yours," he says, cocking his head to one side with the ghost of a smile.

"Fine, then. I will, Eric."

He gives me a nod, letting his appreciation show. "Much better." Then, slowly, he turns and looks out across my yard again. I haven't the slightest idea what's captured his attention. Godric, maybe? I crane my neck, searching the yard with my eyes myself. Nothing. I can't much see through the dark of the yard, anyhow.

"What are you staring at?" I ask, feeling stupid.

"You have a vampire living next door to you," he informs me, matter-of-factly. I feel my eyes widen. Well, I'll be damned. I never knew.

"I do?"

"Yes, you do."

I catch an odd shift in his expression; I can tell he is gritting his teeth together, by the way the muscles of his jaw twitches. And then, stunning me, he brings up a hand and flips- what I am assuming is our vampire neighbour- the middle finger. He chuckles underneath his breath darkly, when I snatch his wrist, and try to wrench his hand down.

"Hey," I gasp. "That is very rude!"

His deviant expression shifts into a more stern, serious one directed at me. "Fucker deserves it."

"Well, thank you," I breathe, miffed. "I don't exactly want to make an enemy out of my vampire next door neighbour. Now I'll probably be on his hit-list just for standing near you!"

"You won't be," he mutters, sounding very assured. "No one will harm you."

"And how'd you figure that out?" I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. I'm hardly convinced.

"Because it has already been established that you are my human, and that you belong to me, and me alone. No one would think twice into causing you any harm. If they do, they know the consequences. They will have to deal with me, and I'm not known as a vampire you would like to fuck with." I roll my eyes this time, very obviously for him to see it. There he goes again. He says it like I ought to feel humbled.

"I am not your human, buddy. I would appreciate it if you could stop referring to me, like that."

"Well, tough shit."

"No," I argue, though I try to keep my voice low. I don't want Gran hearing, after all. "No tough shit. I am a girl who is her own person. I am not anybody's, but myself, and the good Lord's himself."

"Well, in this day and age where vampire's are very prominent, you have to be a vampire's human. Otherwise, you're just fucking dead, useless meat for any vampire. Does that appeal to you? Would you like for any vampire to just stumble upon you and kill you at the drop of a hat, without any consequence?"

Of course I don't, and he sure as hell can see that.

He nods, and grunts. "Now that's what I thought." His eyes roam down my dress, and he licks his lips. "It is better to be my human, otherwise fuck-tards like Compton will be coming in for the kill."

"Compton?"

"That is his name; William Thomas Compton." He utters it like it leaves a lingering foul taste on his tongue. He turns back to look in the direction of where he so inconsiderately gave the bird before. "You do have to wonder why it is that he has returned here. He hasn't lived in the Compton residence for years, so why the fuck now?" And it's obvious he is talking to himself, and that he's zooming off into his own private world of thoughts; Thoughts, amazingly, that I can't hear, and I love that I can't. "Unless, he is under orders, and there is something here that..." He stops abruptly, and peers down at me. There's something spooky in his expression. I feel all the little hair's on my arms raise from my skin. And then, quickly, he looks away, and licks his lips again. "Well, let's get this fucking thing over will, shall we? I said that I would meet your Grandmother. Lead the way, Perky Blood-bag."

I gasp, and have a very intense urge to hit him. "You stop calling me that!"

He sighs loudly. "Just hurry it up. Let's get this ridiculous ordeal over with already."

"Fine," I mumble stiffly, deciding to let it slip. For the time being, anyhow.

Reluctantly, I may as well add, because I think I was starting to realize this was a huge mistake, I open the fly-screened door for him, and step aside for him to enter. Once I feel him right on my tail, I start laying down some very strict ground rules.

"My Grandmother is very much like me. She hasn't met a vampire before, so please don't bring out your fangs. I fear it'll frighten her," I tell him honestly. "Oh, and another thing, no swearing. My Grandmother hates curse words as much as I do. She saw you on that television interview, and she thought you were daunting. So, please... try to be nice, all right?" I turn to look at him. He isn't even standing behind me. What? "Eric?" I hiss around me.

"I am here," he calls from the front door petulantly. I storm back the way I entered and, sure enough, he is just standing there with a shoulder pressed against the fly-screen door, looking awkward, and annoyed.

"What are you doing standing there?"

He sighs, and rolls his eyes to the ceiling. "You have to invite me in."

"I have to do- what?"

"Invite. Me. In," he says slowly, placing firm emphasize on each word, like I'm deaf.

"Can't you just walk in?" I ask, feeling breathless in wonder.

"No, that is not possible for me."

"Hmm." I smile brightly. The knowledge pleases me wildly. "I'll have to remember that." He combs both hands through his hair in exasperation, eyeing me expectantly. I simply stare back at him, enjoying his powerless state in all of this. I am a wickedly, wickedly happy girl.

"Well?" He prompts bitterly. "Hurry it up."

"Oh, Eric Northman," I say, hamming it up with phony politeness, "Won't you please come into my home?"

"Finally," he growls, stepping in; his big, black combat boots slapping against the polished floorboards. He isn't a very happy vampire one bit. Oddly enough, it does very funny things to my system. Now I can only pray this goes well with Gran.