Chapter 40
June 11, 1996
The drive to the house was silent, and the tension was palpable. After he'd parked in the driveway, Eric swallowed and turned to look at her. "Are you sure? I don't want you to do anything you're not ready to."
She smiled. "Almost a year ago, I told you that I didn't want to waste any more time. That there was no point in waiting. That I wanted as much time with you as I could get. I forgive you, Eric. It might be a while before I can trust you all the way, but I'm ready to love you."
"I will never fuck up again. I promise."
She sighed. "I'm not going to tell you that you only have one more chance, or that you have to be perfect all the time. I don't want you walking on eggshells, scared of making any little mistake or else I'll leave you. But if I'm going to be with you, I'm going to expect everything you expect back. I'm drawing a hard line, Eric. If you cheat, I'm done. And if you ever hurt me like that again, on purpose, you will lose us both. If that's who you really are, I won't be able to trust you with him. I can't expose him to behaviour like that, especially when it's directed at me. You can't set that kind of example."
Eric looked so sad and scared and remorseful. She caressed his cheek. "I love you. I want us to be a family. I'm not ready to move in just yet, but I can sleep over a lot. And I'll love being able to spend more time with Pam, too. And Godric, I guess, as much as I hate to admit it sometimes."
Eric leaned over and kissed her. "I love you, too. And I want to be a family more than anything."
"Let's go inside. Pam is going to break that window if she tries looking out it any harder."
He grinned. "How in the hell can you like Pam more than Godric, anyway?"
Sookie shrugged. "She's the best friend I've ever had. She got me through those months when you were gone and I was pregnant and miserable. She saved my life. I nearly died of withdrawal after you left."
"Jesus, Sookie."
"I'm fine now. But I can't really describe me and Pam. You're mine, but she is, too, kind of. In a much different way. And, as much as she likes to tease, I know she would never touch me. She knows I'm yours, and she's serious about it. She has been trying to push me back to you for weeks."
He was out of his seat and opening her door in a flash. Sookie stretched up for a kiss, and then turned around. Pam rolled her eyes and then winked at her through the window.
Sookie laughed. "That's next door to an exclamation for your sister."
"Sister. Don't remind me."
She laughed again. "You always said you wanted a sister."
"A younger sister. Or a brother. I wasn't picky."
She took his hand again and they went inside. Leif called to her as soon as she walked through the door. He was hungry, and she found him in the living room with Pam.
"Did you tell him that I was home?"
"The baby? Of course. You have to speak to them if you don't want them to grow up to be idiots. I also told him you were almost certainly going to have sex with his father tonight, but he didn't seem to care. Why?"
Sookie picked up the baby. She wanted to duct tape Pam's mouth shut. Sookie was sure that she was bright red; her face felt like it was about a thousand degrees. She gave Pam the dirtiest look she had, and said, "He called out to me as soon as I walked in the door. He's hungry. He might have been calling for a while, but I don't think so. He's still pretty calm." She didn't know if all babies could understand something like that or not. Maybe they could but nobody knew because they couldn't talk yet.
"He was good as gold, of course. I can't believe that sullen little shit sired such a nice, quiet, well-behaved child. He's even happy most of the time! He gets all of his good traits from you."
Eric didn't even notice the insults. He was still back where Pam had said that Sookie was going to have sex with him. Tonight. Sookie had implied it, too, but it hadn't really sunk in until now, spelled out like that.
Sookie was sitting on the couch nursing the baby and he was on pins and needles, wondering if Pam was right. It had been almost 3 months since he'd had sex, and as much as he jerked off, he was just never not horny. At least not for very long. And he never felt satisfied. But, really, he hadn't since last July.
The baby fell asleep after nursing from one side, and Sookie carried him down to her room and kissed his head before she laid him in the crib.
The soft voice behind her almost made her yelp. "I think he's the prettiest baby I've ever seen. He looks so much like his Mama." He wrapped his arms around her and she leaned back against him.
"I'm a Mommy, actually." His eyebrows went up. He never would have expected that. Even hearing her say it sounded almost foreign. "I don't want to be anything like Mama. I need Leif to call me something else." Eric kissed her head and squeezed her just a little tighter. He had seen her mother break her arm a million times in his head. He was glad she'd picked something different.
Sookie said, "Your father thinks the baby looks like you. I ran into him at church on Sunday. I'm sorry I forgot to mention it. He was pretty suspicious, and I'm sure the baby's name made it worse. But he ended up not asking if Leif was yours. You're going to have to tell him that you're back and about the baby before you run into him at the mall or something. And before Gran or Jason let something slip."
Sookie turned around in his arms and pulled his face down to hers. He kissed her, and wondered how his balls could throb like that without a heartbeat.
"Eric, please make love to me."
"Here? But the baby…"
"The baby is sound asleep and can only see things clearly if they're closer than a foot away, anyhow. He's fine."
She turned around and looked back over her shoulder. "Unzip me?"
And he was back in her grandmother's room, about to make love to her for the first time. There was a party outside, but they were having a much better time in their little cocoon. She had been wearing a different dress and her tan wasn't quite as dark this time around - it was nearly a month earlier. And, of course, he was Vampire now. But it was close enough that it was almost like this experience was superimposed over the other one. And he had replayed their first time together countless times in his head, so he thought that the details were almost completely right.
He unzipped her dress and kissed where her neck met her shoulder. She got goosebumps. The dress fell to the floor and she turned around again. Her bra and panties matched and were red - his favourite colour - but she remembered that she didn't look like she had before. She sort of covered up her stomach with her hand and blushed. She was young enough that her skin had bounced back pretty well, but she had stretch marks and her tummy was still a little rounded.
He tilted her head up so she would look at him. "You are beautiful, Sookie." He kissed her, and then took her other hand and led her to the bed. He sat on the edge, and she stood between his legs. More memories of their first time. They kissed and soon her hands were in his hair and he was undoing the clasp on the back of her bra. He pulled back. "Is this Ok?"
"Eric, I want you. Of course it's Ok."
He let her bra go and it fell to the floor with the dress. Her breasts looked different, too. Even bigger. And a little uneven, since the baby had just nursed, but she just kissed him again and tried not to think about it. She grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled it up and he pulled it over his head and then kissed her some more.
He was so hard, and she felt and tasted and smelled so good. He almost wished he would cum in his pants to take the edge off a little. He was really scared of hurting her. It wasn't just the sex; he hadn't fed from a live donor in nearly three months, either.
She pulled away and crawled onto the bed. And her ass in that thong… He pulled off his jeans and laid down next to her. He kissed her neck and willed his fangs to stay up so he could suck and scrape his teeth along her throat. He wanted so much to bite her, but he needed to save that for later. If she even let him. She must have been scared by his story. He knew that she wouldn't bite him, as much as he wanted her to. Even if she had almost died from withdrawal. But he would love to make sure she would never have to go without again.
He kissed down to her chest and paused at her breasts, not knowing if she wanted him to touch, or if they were Leif's now. Her fingers were in his hair again, and she pulled him closer to the breast Leif hadn't fed from. "You need to open your mouth wide, like you did when you fed from me that time, and then suck, in a rhythm. Nothing will come out at first. It takes a few seconds, but then it will start to spray. Don't be surprised when it isn't only a trickle. You don't have to keep sucking hard. Just swallow. You'll get the hang of it."
He was still completely mindblown, and kind of felt like this couldn't possibly be real, but he kissed and sucked on her nipple, and then sucked it deep into his mouth. When her milk let down, the spray did startle him a little, but fuck. It was almost as good as her blood, and certainly better than anything else he'd had since he went to Texas. And it was so erotic, and kind of taboo, and he came in his underwear after all. And even though he was still rock hard, he relaxed a little. He had lowered the pressure on the feeding side and the fucking side, and he knew that he wouldn't hurt her now.
She sucked in her breath between her teeth when his fangs snicked down, but then she moaned and pulled him tighter against her. He hadn't meant to, and hadn't even felt it coming, but her blood mixed with her milk was the best thing he had ever tasted.
When the milk had slowed, he pulled away and licked the wounds. "I'm sorry-"
She cut him off. "I'm not. Please, Eric. I'm not made out of glass. Take off the kid gloves and make love to me."
He pulled off his jockeys and laid back down and they just kissed for a while. When she pulled away to catch her breath a little, she said, "Will you please…?" But then she bit her lip and blushed.
He smiled. He had been teasing her for almost a decade. He just couldn't help himself. "Will I please what, Sookie?"
"You know. Kiss me…"
Fuck, she was adorable. He kissed her nose, and then her lips. "There. Is that what you meant? If not, where? I'm sure you can say it."
She stuck her tongue out at him and then rolled her eyes and smiled. "Fine. I'll say it. Errrrrric!"
He laughed out loud, and the last of the tension was just gone. He grinned at her and kissed her hard, and then down her body to her stomach. She tried to cover it again.
"No, Sookie. Please don't. You're beautiful."
He moved her hand and kissed just below her belly button. Even though his vision was a hell of a lot better than hers, he didn't see what the big deal was. She was beautiful.
And then he was between her legs, and he pulled down her panties and kissed her. He hadn't forgotten what she tasted like - he didn't seem to forget anything anymore - but you can't taste a memory. Not really. You can only conjure up the ghost of a flavour, and only then if you're lucky. He'd tasted her mouth and her skin and her blood and even her milk. And now, licking her and sucking on her clit, he'd had everything he'd craved for the past year just in the last few minutes.
He slid in his finger and was surprised to find how tight she still was, despite the baby. He added another and stroked her g-spot and tapped her clit with his tongue. Her breathing was starting to get ragged and her fingers were back in his hair, and he could tell she was getting close.
"Open the bond, Eric. I want you to feel it, too."
She came a few seconds later, and he was sure he would have too if he hadn't already cum a few minutes before. Her release and his arousal all mixed up together were enough to drive him crazy, and he needed her. He kissed her tummy again before kissing her mouth.
She wrapped her legs around his hips, and he didn't have to be asked twice. She was so tight and hot, and he was glad that he could bounce back quickly because he wasn't going to last long at all. He was really hoping to fuck Sookie eventually, but right now, he kind of wanted to worship her. After tonight, she deserved it. As they made love, he pushed love at her through the bond. He had wanted to so many times since he'd been back. He was surprised when she tentatively pushed love back to him.
He jerked a little when she bit his tongue, but then moaned when she sucked it into her mouth. He felt his blood inside her again, and it felt like a piece that had been missing fell back into place. It was almost as if she was going down the checklist of every single thing he had fantasized about happening tonight. She pulled her mouth away.
"You didn't take much blood, right?"
"No. Just a little."
"I need to be able to feed Leif, too, so you need to take it easy. But I want to bite you while you bite me. I missed it so much. I want to feel close like that again." She bit her lip. "And it feels so good."
And he checked off the last box that mattered. "I love you, Sookie." He licked her neck and then sucked hard before he bit. She bit his shoulder, and it was the closest he was ever going to come to a religious experience.
When she came back to herself, he was licking her neck. She wrapped her arms around him and just held him for a few minutes, his face tucked against her throat.
"I heard you before I saw you for the first time. I was under the bleachers at football tryouts just after I turned eight. I was trying to find Jason on the sidelines, but I heard your brain first. I've loved you ever since."
"I fell in love with you when I was sixteen, I think. Maybe a little sooner. But I've pretty much loved you forever, too."
She was shocked. Not that he'd loved her as a friend - or even almost like a little sister - pretty much from the beginning. She knew that. But how could she, of all people, not have known that he'd been in love with her, too, since she was twelve or thirteen years old? She had always tried hard not to read his mind, though. And she'd avoided him as much as possible for a lot of that time, and he was in another continent for even longer. She wondered how different their lives would have been if she'd known. As happy as she was right now, and with their perfectly and wonderfully normal son sleeping in the crib beside them, she wouldn't change anything, despite how awful most of those years had been in between.
"Before the shed?"
"Yeah. Way before, I think. But I didn't really realize until after I thought it was too late."
They talked until nearly dawn, reminiscing about their childhood, and filling each other in on the past year apart. He avoided anything about the donors, but had a lot of funny stories about his training and the other members of the nest. She told him about meeting Pam and Godric, and about delivering the baby in the car. He laughed at her description of poor Jason's face until bloody tears were running down his cheeks. But when she licked them off, things quickly heated back up again.
Sookie was on top, rolling her hips with her head tipped back and her throat stretched so long, and he could see the blood pulsing through her carotid. He wanted to, always, but he knew he couldn't bite her again.
"Look at me, Lover." It really turned him on when she looked right into his eyes when they had sex or she sucked his dick or he bit her thigh. She looked down at him and cupped her breasts. She really had no idea how beautiful she was. Or sexy. She kept her eyes locked with his until the blush had nearly reached her chin, and her eyes closed as they both came.
Sunrise was minutes away, and she snuggled down with her head on his chest. His cool body felt good against her flushed skin.
"I finally managed to stay up until dawn." She kissed his chest. "This is the first time we get to sleep together."
He kissed her head and smiled. "I guess years of sleepovers don't count."
She played with the hair below his belly button. "Thank you for tonight. It couldn't have been more perfect."
"Thank you, Sookie. So much. For giving me another chance."
She kissed him and put her ear back over his unbeating heart and fell asleep as he died for the day.