AN: For any timeline sticklers, I apologize but things are going a bit out of order in this. Mostly because I feel like it, but also because Bill's dead so who cares?

Eric usually came by right after sunset, while I was working the dinner shift and occasionally I would see him leaving as I got home. We always said hello, and he usually stared at me like he was still waiting for me to strip off all my clothes and spread myself over the hood of his car in invitation. Sometimes I thought about that. One night he left behind the contract, and it was more generous than I expected when he said the word itself. I only had to work forty hours in one month - ten hours a week, unless I agreed to an exception - and even if I only worked half of that I was making more than I did all month full time at Merlotte's. I wanted to say it was too much but Gran convinced me that if Eric was sure that I was worth it then I should accept. He picked up the contract the next night while I was at work. I didn't even get to thank him.

Gran said that they talked about a different era in history every night. He even met her at a vamp friendly coffee shop one evening with another vampire who had been a carpetbagger in New Orleans after the Civil War. She didn't stop talking about that for days afterwards. I wanted to send him flowers or a card or something, but I didn't know what would be best. Even Gran admitted that it frustrated her that all she could offer was synthetic blood, especially after Eric complimented her on the scent of one of her pies one evening. I'm glad they got to know each other, I think if they hadn't I might not have trusted Eric when I needed to, which was soon.

A few weeks after Eric met Gran, the phone rang in our farmhouse shortly after sunset.

"Sookie, it's Eric for ya'," Gran said.

I dried my hands from the sink water where I was washing our dinner dishes. "Hey, Eric."

"Sookie," he purred over the phone. "Are you available to work at Fangtasia this evening? I have a situation that could use your expertise."

I wondered if Eric knew he could make a business proposition sound like a sexual one. He probably did know, and enjoyed doing so.

"Sure. What time?"

"Sooner would be better. We will remain closed for the evening."

I definitely wasn't dressed for work, much less work that involved Eric seeing me but I'd had a shower and sun tan earlier. "I'll be by in an hour so?"

"I look forward to it."

It sounded like he looked forward to a lot more than just me coming by to read minds. I knew that I shouldn't have, that it was like tempting a… well like tempting a vampire, but I went ahead and put another nice sundress, this one a little tighter and a little shorter, and a dark blue shade that reminded me of Eric's voice, oddly enough –rich and cool. I put my hair up cause it was hot out, but also because it made my neck look long and since I didn't really have much jewelry that wasn't real silver I left my arms and neck bare. I put my red heels on again and Gran shook her head as I came down the stairs.

"Poor Eric," she said.

"He's a vampire, Gran," I laughed.

"Any one could see you've got him panting for it, and now you're going there to tease him with it."

I blushed. "It's complicated." I didn't want to explain to my gran that the young man she'd set her sights on, at least for me, was about as emotionally unavailable as they get.

"You know, Sookie," Gran said gently. "You're young. It'd be okay for you to have a little fun where you can."

If I'd been sipping water I'd have choked. As it was I felt a little like I was drowning. Had Gran just told me to go get some if it was there? I didn't know what to think. She stepped forward and kissed my cheek. "Pop in to say goodnight when you get back, or call from Eric's office if it'll be too late." Gran thought the club's name was tacky so she never mentioned it, just called it Eric's business or his office.

I have to admit, it wasn't until I walked into Fangtasia that it really hit me what I had signed up for. Eric, Pam, and Longshadow were waiting in interrupted stillness. Their eyes devoured me with undisguised hunger as I took in the diminutive man sitting between them, sweating bullets of terror.

"Eric, may I speak with you in private for a moment?"

Pamela and Longshadow both smirked. Dressed the way I was they probably thought I'd come for sex, but Eric had the decency or at least the experience to raise one eyebrow in surprise. That didn't stop him from using his usual rough purring tone when he said, "Gladly."

He escorted me down the hallway to his office where he only allowed me to step in before surrounding me against the door, his arms trapping me at my shoulders. He breathed in deeply and groaned.

"When you smell like that, you are like bait. Bait I would take even if I knew it was part of a trap." His eyes opened and the blue was electric. "Has anyone ever warned you about walking into a vampire den doused in the scent of the sun?"

"You have now," I said sharply. "Can they hear us?"

Eric grinned slowly, his body leaning into mine until he was barely an inch away. "Not if we whisper," he breathed against my ear.

"Get. It. Together." I hissed right back into his own ear and he froze. "I'm not coming on to you. Why did you ask me here tonight?"

Eric drew back and studied my face. "There is money missing. Tens of thousands. I have questioned my vampire staff. I need you to study the humans."

"And what will you do if it was a human? Because, Eric, that poor guy out there is wondering if he should have said goodbye to his wife before coming here tonight."

Eric stepped away and ran a hand through his hair. I'd come to discover that his whole body language tightened every time I reminded him of business. Even the air around us was affected, dropping several degrees. "I see," he said. Vampires were always saying that to me, like most of the time things I said didn't translate well the first go around.

"I can't help you if it ends with people dying," I said. "I should have thought of that but when you come to the house you're so…"

"Human?" The word was heavy and dull like lead.

I grimaced and corrected him. "Kind."

He froze, his back to me and I took a few steps away from the door and lowered my voice. "You're good to Gran and that counts more than anything else might in my book. Maybe it's my fault for not remembering that you are a vampire."

Eric's swiveled, his eyes narrowed at me. "You have signed the contract."

I kept my face expressionless. He had warned me that vampires took by force and that warning had eased me enough to forget that he was referring to himself in that. "You're right, I did. And I will read them for you but I… I won't live well with myself. I will look for a way out of the contract." There probably wasn't one, I knew. Eric didn't say it, though.

His shoulders lowered and he moved close to me again, some of the commanding tension disappearing from him. "They will need to be punished," he said.

"The police?" I whispered. "Can you glamour them to confess?"

Eric studied my face. "Not every job I require you for will be so easy for me to excuse this way. If I appear weak to other vampires, I will become a target. I have people to protect, including yourself. Think on this."

"I will," I murmured. "Thank you."

He looked uneasy and I wondered if I was already making him risk too much by allowing me this concession. The idea of that touched me, in an odd way.

"Sit," Eric gestured to a long black couch to my right. "I think it would be best if we conducted these interviews in private."

An hour or so later and I had a splitting headache. I had never really tried to read people, to find a way to direct the ramble of their thoughts to fit a line of questioning. And it wasn't made any easier by Eric looming at my side terrifying his employees. It'd taken me at least fifteen minutes to calm Bruce, the sweating accountant, enough for me to realize he was innocent. Even Ginger, a vapid blonde waitress who was more bite marks than she was girl, was equal parts fear and preening.

"Ginger," I snapped at her, sick of seeing an ongoing fantasy reel between her and Eric. "Who stole the money from the bar?"

It was the most direct way of sorting through the mushy brains of Eric's over glamoured employees. Up until this point it led directly to innocent terror, or innocent confusion. But not Ginger.

She began to scream and flail, even when Eric moved to hold her still. She cussed and cursed at me and the whole time I dug ruthlessly through her suddenly spinning thoughts, wishing I could stick my fingers in my ears and still look like a professional.

"She knows who it was but she can't say," I told Eric over the din of her shouting. Pam and Longshadow walked in with the last of the waitresses, and grimaced at the hysterical Ginger. "It's a vampire. They've bitten her. They work…"

Over my shoulder I heard the vampire's name from the last waitress and I jumped in my seat and looked directly at him.

"It's Long-"

Longshadow threw the girl against the wall and leapt at me in one move. My head hit the wall behind me and I screeched as knives tore into my shoulder and Longshadow's black curtain of hair covered my sight. He went stiff against me, and sagged and then I felt gushing blood drip down into my cleavage and into my lap. I hoped it wasn't mine.

Longshadow flopped away, revealing Eric with a vamp gunk coated stake pulled fresh out of his former bartender's back. His face was furious as it studied my now blood covered chest. Pam's fangs had dropped and she was taking deep gulps of breath, groaning slightly, but luckily she turned her attention to the other waitress, Belinda. Despite her vampire boyfriend just being staked, Ginger looked both horrified and ready to accommodate Eric.

He took my arms in both his hands and hauled me up from the couch.

"Eric." I wasn't sure what to say next. Don't kill me? Don't bite me? Don't look at me like Pam is looking at your waitresses? He wasn't. He looked murderous.

"Ginger, follow us. Come," he said to me, but he was pulling me out of his office and down the hall so the order seemed moot. He dragged me into a locker room and twisted a shower handle so hard I was surprised it didn't break off. He pushed me into the spray. "Wash the blood off your breasts. I will take care of your shoulder."

I watched from under the steaming water, in a state of frozen shock as Eric's fangs dropped and he took a quick efficient bite from Ginger's wrist. She pouted as he licked once and pulled away. "Leave now," he said to her, and she stomped away like a child. "When we feed, our saliva begins to produce a coagulant. It will heal your shoulder."

Just before I could open my mouth to ask if Eric was about to spit on me, he wrapped his arm around my back and pulled me to his chest, lowering his face to my shoulder where he proceeded to lick me. He hummed in approval and I could feel another part of him, lower, agreeing with his pleasure. My eyes teared up and I began to shake. I was standing in a hot shower, trying to rinse away the blood of one vampire, while another licked my wounded shoulder sensually, but also somehow chaste. Eric felt my trembles and his hands ran up and down my back to soothe, I think. Despite what his mouth was doing, I couldn't really convince myself that his intentions were entirely about taking advantage of me. Slowly, by infintesimal amounts, I began to relax. I realized that Eric's anger had been directed at Longshadow, not me, and his tense commands had been born out of control, not chastisement.

Just as I was starting to feel affected by the long strokes of his tongue against my skin Eric stood up straight, his arms still holding me against him and his mouth shockingly red. He looked relaxed, sated, but his eyes ran over my face like a doctor taking a diagnostic test.

"I would be remiss if I did not mention that yours is the sweetest blood I have had in centuries," Eric murmured. "I will never forgive Longshadow for tasting it first."

"You staked him."

"He would have drained you."

"I'm just a human, Eric.

"He stole from me," Eric justified but I could tell that he was giving me a list of reasons, probably ones he'd come up with while licking me. He was as surprised in the moment as I was that he had staked another vampire for me. "I am within my rights to respond to his theft as well as his threat to you. You did not stipulate that I must also turn over the vampires to the police."

I shook my head and as I looked down I could see a bit of black hair draped over my shoulder and bit of something else stuck between my breasts. The arousal of the moment went out like a light and I nearly heaved.

"I'm going to be sick," I warned Eric, and he stepped away to my back. I felt my dress loosen, and the vampire gunk slipped down my stomach and dropped to the floor along with my vomit. Had Eric undone my zipper? I felt my back. He had.

"Undress. Wash off. I'll leave something for you to wear by the door." His voice was so gentle I wanted to cry. Part of me wanted to ask him to stay too, I wasn't sure I could hold myself up while I was alone. But when I looked over my shoulder he was gone. It had probably been a long time since he had to watch a human barf, I couldn't blame him for running.

I stripped down to my surprisingly, and thankfully, clean panties. I'd kicked off my heels in Eric's office while we'd been interviewing the staff. I had to keep stepping out of the way of falling gore from my hair and arms. I left the hot water after a long time. Probably a longer time than was necessary. When I finally yanked the faucet off - Eric's twist to 'on' had almost become permanent – and turned the corner I was only just getting over the shock enough to wonder if Eric would take the opportunity to catch me naked. But I was alone in the room aside from a pair of men's black boxer briefs, and a black t-shirt long enough to cover the embarrassment of the baggy underwear. It was probably asking for trouble, but I went ahead and left the men's underwear off.

Eric was waiting just outside the door, frozen with his arms and legs crossed as he leaned against the wall. He looked up as I stepped closer and I got the feeling he'd been standing there for almost as long as I had been alone in the shower.

"Are you alright?" It wasn't urgent, like it might have been from a human, and I was sure Eric could tell I was alright now, but it still sounded sincere.

"Yes. I think so. I haven't looked at my shoulder."

That gave Eric the excuse to look at my bare skin and he did so until the pause was uncomfortable. I cleared my throat. He smiled, lecherous but mild. He straightened up and stepped up close to me, gently pushing the already wide collar to inspect the skin where my neck met my shoulder and Longshadow's bite stung. I thought he was about to lick me again until I felt his cool lips resting softly on a bit of non-mangled skin. I was holding my breath.

"It will heal," he whispered and I shivered. His face was suddenly in front of me, soft and cold, hard and hungry, all of that at once and nothing in between.

"I should call Gran and tell her I'll be late," I was suddenly saying. I could've kicked myself.

He pulled away and looked to the floor. "I notified Adele. Told her you would be all right. She is… very unhappy with me."

"It wasn't your fault. I'll explain to her."

Eric's icy blues were on me. "Do you believe that?"

"You didn't think it was a vampire cheating you," I reminded him. "I don't believe very many things surprise you, but I'm sure this did." Had I moved myself forward? I was very close to Eric, his face hanging over mine, just a fraction less than inscrutable. I reached up and cupped Eric's face with my palm, his pupils dilating with my touch. His skin was smooth and cool, felt soothing against my hot hand. "Would it surprise you if I said I had changed my mind about your offer?"

I think I'd been reconsidering Eric's proposal of a thousand year's worth of pleasure over and over ever since he first made it. Gran's words from earlier had a little effect, but the understanding of Eric's protection from Longshadow, and from himself while in the shower, had tipped the scales in his favor.

"Sookie," he breathed, his cheek lowering to mine. "You're in shock." He pulled away. "I will drive you home."

My chest constricted. Had I just been rejected? I had felt plenty, heard plenty through thoughts, but I had never actually had anyone do it out loud. I followed Eric after a beat, my bare feet slapping staccato against the floor, my back rigid. I expected him to put me in the corvette but instead he led me to my little yellow junker. I wondered if he would fit.

"How will you get home?" I asked as Eric opened the passenger door for me.

"I will fly."

I fell into the seat with his words and he shut the door behind me. He drove me home in silence and I felt bad for making things awkward. I hoped he would still visit Gran.

He pulled over the side of the road before our driveway. I couldn't see the house from here. Was he going to make me walk?

"Sookie," he said. I fiddled with my hands and studied my chipped polish. "There is much you don't understand."

It was the worst thing he could say in the face of my insecurities. "Look. You don't need to let me down easy. I didn't realize the offer was off the table."

I was out of my seat, in the air, and over Eric's lap with a breathless suddenness. How he managed to maneuver me without banging me against the ceiling or the gearshift or even the steering wheel, I have no idea.

"The offer is most definitely on the table, Sookie Stackhouse," Eric growled, his hands tense against my back.

"Oh."

"You were attacked," he said tersely. "Forgive me for being uncertain of your motivations."

My chest was brushing against his and my nipples were pebbling. "Would it help to know I was changing my mind before Longshadow fell to pieces over me?"

Eric's face brushed against mine. "It would." His lips skimmed mine. "But there are things you should know."

"Like?" I asked, deliberately brushing my mouth over his again. I could taste him breathing me in.

"If we are lovers, you will be mine."

I froze and met his gaze. The word sounded heavy with weight. "What does that mean?"

"To other vampires you would be my possession. To damage or steal you would be punishable by death. They could not touch you without my permission. You would have no other. Vampire or man."

Red flags were going up like crazy. "Whose would you be?"

Eric looked genuinely surprised by that question. I waited patiently, my legs over both of his, my palms against his cool chest.

"My maker's," he said stiffly. "I will be loyal to Pam, and to an extent the Queen."

Well. I was expecting that, I suppose. "And you will have others? Their blood, their bodies?"

Eric was thoughtful again, but not as surprised. "You would prefer monogamy?"

"I would. You can cut me loose when you like, but unless it's life or death I don't want you straying."

"Blood from any other source would taste bitter after yours," Eric said matter-of-factly. "If you are willing to feed me, I would be a fool to insult you in that way. I need very little at my age. And if you think I will be unsatisfied then yes, I will cut you loose as you say if that occurs."

It sounded clinical in that way.

"I will need to take things slowly. And I will need honesty," I said.

Eric's gaze was turning hungry but he stayed on task. "I will tell you, as I have, as much as you may know safely."

"Then I'll think about it," I said, shifting to move away.

Eric's hand's clamped down. "Allow me to give you something to think about."

His mouth returned to mine and displayed all the talent, skill, and expertise a thousand years could afford someone in the art of kissing. I became liquid, felt every bit as sweet as vampires claimed I smelled. I felt like hot candy in a vat, in Eric's hands. His fingers slid into my hair at the back of my neck, and his free hand rolled my hips over his, creating sweet pangs below my stomach. Then his fingertips were under the shirt he leant me and inside my panties, massaging and circling and dipping to make me tremble. I had to pull away to gasp and Eric's mouth slid down my throat to suck just below the corner of my jaw. There was a pretty big part of me thinking about the fact that we were in a car; that this was a big step for me and it'd been on my mind for all of a handful of hours. That big part of me must have had a very quiet voice, totally drowned out by the sounds my whimpers and Eric's long purr.

His fangs brushed over the skin of my neck but never bit and it was on their third, careful pass over my skin that I shuddered and fell apart in his hold. I wondered if I came too quickly or too much or if I should have cried out his name like I wanted to.

"You can… you can bite," I whispered, still shaking in the after shocks every so often.

He chuckled and kissed my neck. "Not tonight. You should think first." I sighed and he nipped me, making me jump. He laughed again. "You must be certain. When I finally have you, Sookie, I will not give you up lightly."

AN: Get it, get it, Sookie Stackhouse. Cause let's be honest, we would. I own nothing! (I own less than nothing, actually, cause I went to art school and paid for that with loooaaans.) Leave a review! It pumps me up and also, I am flexible on details and could be swayed. Again, thank you to everyone who reviewed. It was lovely to know you're enjoying this so far. I hope we stay on that track!