A/N: Thank you all so much for the wonderful response to the last chapter. I was so blown away and am, as always, beyond grateful!
Thanks as always and ever to my wonderful beta, Northman Maille. I really, really would be lost without you!
Disclaimer: I own nothing…I just thought it was time for a nookie break before more shit hits the fan!
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Eric didn't hesitate to cross the space between them and take her in his arms. He had no idea what they could do, but he knew in this moment, for however long they could manage to stay in this room, they were each other's. He wouldn't…couldn't deny either of them the comfort and strength these brief minutes together might provide, or how they might be able to sustain them both through the decades of separation still to come.
"I don't know." His words were a whisper on Sookie's skin as he finally took her mouth with his own, sealing their lips together and drinking her in for the first time in what felt like eternity. "I don't know." He said again, a long moment later when his mouth left hers and began to trail desperate, biting kisses across her jaw and down her throat. "I don't know, but I love you, Sookie. I love you so much." He said as he bent down, his mouth lowering to lay small kisses on the exposed swells of her breasts.
Sookie couldn't help the soundless tears that slid down her cheeks as she felt Eric's mouth burning her skin.
When he pulled back, they stood for another long moment, looking at each other, so desperately in need of the other and yet, once again, afraid to act.
This time it wasn't fear the other had abandoned their love which stood between them. It was the strength of their love that seemed to hold them in place. If they did this, if they gave into the need and the desire, and tried to quell the longing and the pain, it might ease the hurt for the few moments they moved against each other, joined as one. But what about afterwards?
How did they go back? How did they leave this room after having touched and tasted and devoured every part of each other and return to another ninety years apart?
Sense and reason told them such a moment of weakness would only make it harder, but sense and reason seemed to have taken their leave when Sookie wrapped her arm around Eric's neck, tangled his hair between her fingers, and brought his face down to hers.
Where a Human would have consoled their lover with gentle kisses, Sookie let her tongue dart out and began to lick away the bloody track of Eric's tear, just as she'd done on the night he'd made her.
To a Vampire the action was nearly as exciting as being bitten and it was made all the more so as that little bit of himself entered Sookie's body, sending their long strained bond into a frenzy of ecstasy.
With a deep, needy growl Eric took Sookie's face between his hands and began to mimic her actions, licking the trails of blood, from her lust brightened eyes to the curve of her jaw. His reward, the deep, breathy moan that ripped from her lips, as her head fell back into the cups of his palms and her fangs slammed down.
The sight of Sookie's sharp teeth was the end for him. They were absolute perfection: small, dainty and feminine, yet lethally sharp. Eric remembered the sting of them entering his flesh, unlike anything else he'd felt in his thousand years, and the need to feel her tear him open again obliterated the last molecule of reason from his body.
Pushing Sookie away slightly he began stripping her of her gown. If Sookie had been able to think she might have laughed at how her beautiful dress was coming off in ribbons, exactly the way she'd pictured it when she'd dreamed of rejecting the Doge by sending his 'present' back in a shoe box.
Except she couldn't think a single thought beyond the absolute necessity of ridding Eric of every single accursed piece of fabric which stood between her mouth and the silk over steel of his skin.
Their mouths fused together. Their fangs scraped against one another, drawing blood from tongues and lips, as they stood in the center of the room, rending the clothes from each other's bodies, unseeing and uncaring of the ever-growing pile of destroyed fabric pooling at their feet.
Still, it would have taken time they didn't have to free themselves of everything. When Sookie stood in only her garters and stockings and Eric in nothing more than his dress shirt, ripped open and hanging from his shoulders, he picked Sookie up, one hand behind her knees, the other cradling her back and brought them to the grand bed which dominated the room.
Not wanting to break from Eric's mouth long enough to look for the gap in the gossamer curtains, Sookie simply reached out blindly. Grabbing the expensive material, she ripped it away from several of its rings, making an opening and letting it hang haphazardly.
Sookie gave a low snarl as she found herself tossed on the bed, but before she could reason, or even care, how she'd gotten from Eric's arms to the mattress: he was on top of her, wrenching her thighs apart and lowering his head to scent her desire with a growl of his own.
Even though she didn't need to, Sookie couldn't help her gasp of shock as she felt Eric's fangs graze her hidden folds, followed by the wetness of his tongue as he took one long, slow taste of her. She'd dreamed of being with him so many times. She'd imagined what their reunion would be like on that night, still ninety years off, when he was finally free and she could return to him. In her fantasies it was always a slow, reverent worship of each other's bodies.
She should have known as she was now, even with her memories and humanity returned, having him again after so long could never be a slow, gentle thing.
Their need for each other was as strong as their need for blood and after such starvation all either of them could think of was taking as much from the other, and giving as much of themselves in return as possible, before it was over.
Needing him now, Sookie took Eric by the shoulders, startling him from his vigil between her legs, and pushing him onto his back with all of her considerable strength. When his head hit the pillow, Eric growled again, partly upset that she'd stopped him from feasting on her and partly excited to see what she would do to him, now he was at her mercy.
Smiling down at him, her fangs pressed hard against her full lips, Sookie lowered her head and began a feast of her own. Licking the seam of Eric's lips, she coaxed them to open to her. She twirled her tongue briefly around his own distended and aching fangs, before moving down to lick the pulse of his neck and the indentation of his collar bones and to suck at the muscled plains of his chest, and finally to place stinging nips on both of his hardened nipples.
The last caused Eric to buck up against Sookie's mouth, his hands fisting into her hair, ruining her beautiful curls as his fingers tugged at her scalp, begging her to bite him more, to make him bleed and take him inside her.
Laughing wickedly, drunk on his body, Sookie lowered herself further. Letting her fangs graze a line from Eric's stomach muscles to his groin, causing him to cry out with the exquisite pain, she then retraced her steps, soothing the bleeding cut with her tongue.
She'd intended to taste him, but all of a sudden Sookie found herself once more flat on the bed as Eric loomed over her, her cut having driven him past the last stitch of his patience.
Driving his fingers into her hair, forcing her head up so that their eyes could lock, Eric wasted no more time. With one hard, endless thrust, he was deep insider her, causing them both to shout out at the rough pleasure of his entry.
Sookie's legs wrapped around Eric's waist and her hands braced themselves flat on his chest. Her nails scratched his skin in time to the brutal rhythm he'd set, as they thrashed against each other, frantic to meld into one being.
It only took a short time for their mutual pleasure to reach a frenzied peak and without a word or a sound between them, Sookie lifted her head and Eric lowered his. Their pleasures peaked and finally crashed down on them as they buried their fangs in the other's neck and began to drink deeply.
Time ceased to matter as did anything outside the cocoon of their bed. They gave and took from each other, trading one life force for the other, raising their joining from the animalistic frenzy of need it had been to something almost spiritual, a communion of souls.
As they drank and the bond burst open wide, Eric's hips began to move again, thrusting his still buried cock gently into Sookie as she moaned around the wound in his shoulder and began to lift her hips to meet him, thrust for thrust. When they finally pulled back, licking the other's marks as they watched them fade away, Eric brought them gently over the edge one more time.
Had Sookie still been a Human, Eric would have laid beside her, to give her time to recuperate from the wildness of their passion. As it was, he knew she required no such recovery, but the need to hold her was too great. Moving slightly to his side he took her in his arms and pressed her close, burying his face in her hair as he felt her hide her own in his chest.
"I can't do this anymore." He whispered into darkness that surrounded them. "I can't live without you, especially now you remember all we promised each other."
Sookie bit back the sob which wanted to escape from her lips. She'd known from the first she should not have told him. She knew it would do nothing but burden him, and yet she had anyway. Her guilt was almost as great as the ache she felt thinking of putting on what remained of her clothing and leaving him again.
If it had been within her power she would have returned with Eric, Freyda or no. Would it hurt to watch another parade around in the position that rightfully belonged to her, as his wife? Yes, it would sting and hurt and probably make her near crazy with anger and jealousy, but to be with him she would do it anyway, without hesitation.
No matter what lip service he was required to pay to Freyda, Sookie would always know it was herself whom Eric loved. And in the end, what was the one night he would spend with Freyda to all the others he would give to her? It might not have been enough when she'd been Human and filled to the brim with her high and mighty morals, or a new born Vampire easily lost to the haze of her possessive instincts, but she was more than either of those things now. She was older, calmer and, after a decade of longing for the man she loved, she hoped a little wiser.
Still, it wasn't up to her. Sookie knew Ocella made taking her with him a condition of letting her live for a single, obvious reason. She was a distraction to Eric which Ocella believed he could not afford. If she were there, Ocella feared Eric would not be able to successfully create the illusion Freyda was first in his life, or that duty meant more to him than his bonded child… and it would all fall apart. No, Ocella had been very wise demanding they divorce and Sookie come with him in exchange for her life.
"I don't want to let you go either, Eric. But it's not up to either of us." Sookie could feel Eric nodding against her hair even as their bond seemed to weep for them. They both knew, no matter how they railed against it, there was no changing things… for now.
It was only when Eric took her chin, lifting her face to his and dropping gentle kisses on her lips and fangs, Sookie felt as though the weight of everything had lessened enough to allow her to move again.
"We need to clean up." He said as he kissed his way to the shell of her ear. There was passion in his voice again and Sookie knew Eric had no intention of fumbling around looking for a bathroom.
Rising above her again, Eric laid one last kiss on Sookie's mouth before he began to lick his way down the column of her throat and to the hard tips of her nipples. He took each in his mouth by turn, sucking them to hard peaks, bathing them with his tongue before Sookie lifted his head to look him in the eye once more.
"I want to clean you up too." She whispered.
A hungry smile painted Eric's lips, as he turned on top of her so his powerful thighs bracketed her shoulders and his cock, already huge and granite hard again, grazed her lips. Determined, just as he was, to put off their parting for a little longer, Sookie cupped her hands against the globes of his magnificent bottom and used the leverage to raise herself enough to take his erection between her lips and deep down her throat.
Eric gave a single, hoarse cry before he dropped his head into her folds, which glistened beautifully now they were wet with both her own desire and the remnants of his release, and began to lick her softly.
They had almost brought each other to another shattering climax when Eric heard the sound of the door opening, followed by a sharp intake of breath. Looking up, still dazed from pleasure, it took him a moment to realize who stood there. The intruder stared at them, mouth open in an 'oh' of surprise, eyes betraying deep pain and jealous, burning anger.
"Eric, your Maker is looking for you." Their visitor said, her lip trembling as she fought to keep her voice steady. "There is a problem with your brother." With that, Freyda turned on her heel and left, slamming the door hard enough to crack the gold gilding, the sounds of her hurried footsteps echoing behind her as she fled from them.