Warning for the following: LEMONAAAADE

Sam came by the next morning and it was not my finest hour. I was going a little nutty with grief, not to mention that he barged into my bedroom to wake me up and stared at me in my nightshirt the way a girl who has just lost her most beloved family member does not want to be stared at by her boss. We covered the Shifter business pretty immediately and I kicked him out. Eric would be incensed when he found out, but I was incensed in the moment to discover that someone had been hiding a secret not unlike mine for about as long as they had known me and known my own abilities. Also Sam was now openly projecting his desire to bed and woo me. It was too little too late and a lot creepy in my opinion.

I called Lafayette.

"Hey Hooker," he said sleepily. He was nothing if not consistent. "You need anything?"

"You got a gun?"

He cleared his throat. "'Course I do. I'm a gay black man in the deep south."

"Want to help keep away the vultures?"

Lafayette laughed for a long time. Then he came over with his gun and a bag of pills. They were definitely a temptation, but I thought about what Eric would think if he knew that I not only kicked out my best protection for the day, but also drugged myself to sleep while someone wanted to kill me. If I lived to sunset, he would probably kill me himself. Lafayette drank the old liquor Gran kept on hand 'in case' and I ate the leftovers in the fridge until I thought I might burst. I ate Gran's food like it was a form of exorcism. The kitchen smelled like bleach and lemons. Pam was surprisingly domestic.

I let a few people come in. Jason, of course, although the visit was tense and brief and he was always just shy of exploding at me. Lafayette watched him with a thinly veiled suspicion that made it all worse. Hoyt and Maxine visited and left a casserole. A few Descendants of the Dead swung by, saw my shotgun and Lafayette and said they'd see me at the funeral. I was hanging onto my sanity and my good manners by something less than a thread. Suddenly, being a vampire sounded like a blessing, being forced to shut down for half a day, not having to go through the motions in daylight. But somehow I knew that if I went to ground, if I put myself to sleep with a valium, I wouldn't care if I got up again. It wasn't an attractive thought. I wanted to be a fighter, but I wasn't feeling it that day. Or maybe I was, maybe that's how I got through it.

I was washing the scavenged bones of the dishes that had held Gran's leftovers as the sun sank.

"Hooker!" Lafayette called from the porch. "Someone's comin'."

I picked the shotgun up from where I had it leaning against the counters at my side and ran to the front door. Eric was crossing the yard at a human pace, chest dusted with dirt and his shirt hanging stylishly over his shoulder like a model. His pants were zipped but not buttoned.

"It's okay," I said. "That's just my…" Eric raised an eyebrow and I tested the waters, "…vampire." He smiled.

"Mmmmhmm," Lafayette hummed in approval. "He could have left the pants off too."

"Be careful," Eric warned with a sincerely frightening look. Lafayette froze and in his mind I could tell that he was realizing this was the vampire Dawn had fucked. "My human is possessive and holding a gun."

I actually smiled and Eric winked at me. Lafayette was floored.

"Where is the-?"

I cut Eric off before he could give away Sam's secret in front of someone else. "Sam came by in the morning and I asked him to leave."

Eric's eyes narrowed and Lafayette thought that whatever I'd done to receive Eric's disapproval was a bad, bad, bad idea. "Why, my lover, did you ask him to do that?"

It was my turn to narrow my eyes. I liked the endearment, but I thought his timing might have been a bit off. "He pissed me off," I said.

Eric smirked. "Very well, then." He turned to Lafayette and studied him for a nerve-wracking minute. "Thank you for staying with Sookie today," he said and Lafayette's normally busy brain went radio silent with surprise aside from a brief Holy fuck. "I will take over from here."

To Lafayette's credit, he actually looked at me to double check I was okay with this before he high-tailed it out to his car.

"What about Fangtasia?" I asked.

"I requested the night off," Eric said. "I am the boss so it was a request easily met." He flashed up the porch stairs in a quick blink as Lafayette drove off. I let him look me over and try to puzzle me out. "I am worried about how you feel, lover. Numb."

"Last night was…" Awful, catastrophic, the end of a huge part of my life, an ongoing disaster. "…A lot. Lafayette had pills, and I thought about taking them."

"You did not."

"No." I shook my head. "I would have been an easy target."

Eric leaned down and pressed a cold kiss against my forehead. "I am grateful you thought this way."

"Eric." My voice started to break. "I need you to distract me. For a long time. All night at least."

He wrapped an arm around my waist and I jumped up to wrap my legs around his waist. He kissed me and pressed my back against the doorjamb.

"More," I said as he pulled away.

"Someone would say it is too soon and I am taking advantage of your grief," he said, although I got the sense this was meant to double check my choice.

"Fuck 'em," I said. "We were halfway there already and they aren't invited to join us."

Eric smiled, somewhere between cocky and fond. He probably knew what was going to happen tonight before he went to ground at dawn. I appreciated that he treated it as my choice even when it was so clearly inevitable.

"I have to wash you first," I added, brushing a bit of dirt off his shoulder blade.

He nipped my neck. "Yes. You owe me."

His humor was simultaneously heart-breaking and a relief. He walked us into the house and through my room into the connecting bathroom as I held onto him with my arms and legs. He made it easy and two days ago we both would have been laughing. Now our smiles were small and built more out of the comfort of each other than they were out of the thrill of what was coming. We undressed each other, but with a lot more touching than last night and by the time we were under the water I was panting and Eric's mouth was searching out every exposed inch of my skin.

I flip-flopped between the events of the night before, and the shocking understanding that this was a man who had seen me nude twice and tonight we were going to have sex, something I had resigned myself to never enjoying up until meeting Eric. I relished the task of washing Eric, having the excuse to touch him everywhere, in places I had only seen in the memories of others. He seemed equally thrilled with every skim of my fingers, and he dropped his forehead against mine as I washed his hair clean. My hands grew greedy over his perfect ass until he laughed and held them away from me, sinking to his knees in my small tub and pressing his lips between my legs.

"Oh, god. Eric, you can't-"

He chuckled against my sensitive skin and swiped his tongue out to taste me. I dropped my head back to hit the tile behind me.

"I assure you, my lover. I can."

And boy did he! He held my ass in his hands, my toes brushing the floor just barely. His mouth licked and grazed and sucked and blew, warm from the water.

"Look at me, Sookie."

As soon as I caught the electric heat of his gaze I fell apart above him. I could feel myself going limp, losing the precarious balance above him, but then suddenly he was up, rubbing his body against mine, drawing my trembles out. I tried to let myself drop.

"Let me…" I said although I couldn't get the full thought out, just brushed my fingers over his erect penis where it pressed against my stomach.

"No," he said gently. "I must be inside you, here," one of his fingers dove up where his tongue had just been, "first."

He swirled his finger and I moaned, closing my eyes. The water was starting to cool. Eric turned the faucet off and lifted me out of the tub with one arm while the other hand continued to make me squirm. His finger went deeper and deeper, swirled out to spread me. He added a finger and I clung to him. It was more than I had ever felt on my own, more than he had shown me yet, and I felt paralyzed and eager.

He dried me with a towel and I shook on unsteady legs as he pumped me with two fingers. When I tried to dip and take more, his hand anticipated me and scooted away. I whimpered in frustration.

"Eric."

"You are beautiful, lover," he murmured. I looked at him and was amazed at how he gazed at me, reverent and awed. I felt beautiful.

"I can't stand," I said.

Eric lifted me and took me to the bed, leaving me in the center. His fangs were down and I reached up and brushed a finger over each of them. His hips jerked so hard in response that for a moment the head of his penis was brushing over me next to his fingers. He added a third and I cried out as my orgasm hit me like an anvil and his touch tore inside of me. He pumped until I stopped shaking and I hissed as he pulled his fingers out. He licked blood off of them.

"I am too large," he explained. "I would've hurt you."

He pricked a finger on his fang and licked it, coating it in his blood and saliva. His finger returned to it's place inside of me and I bucked, making him chuckle. The sting faded and Eric added a second finger, spreading me. It was starting to feel a little surgical aside from his eager eyes, then his mouth lowered to kiss me and I forgot about the work of it and started feeling the pleasure again.

"This is a lot of work for one fuck," I said, crude in my insecurity.

Eric brushed wet hair from my face. His face was stern and full of hunger and a terrifying strength. "Not one fuck, Sookie. A lifetime of it."

I gasped, at his words and also at the sudden shock of him pressing inside of me, his hips circling, driving deeper by small fractions until I was finding his rhythm and pulling him in. It was too much, too much sensation and too much novelty of experience for me to digest the meaning of his words. I pulled his face to mine, kissed him to push aside the deep, stretching ache of his closeness. When he was all the way in, his hips moved like tiny waves, stimulating. I couldn't focus, couldn't think, and I latched my mouth onto his shoulder. I was sobbing in pleasure and fear at what he could make me feel, how much he could draw out of me. My teeth clamped down, not hard enough to break his skin, but enough to shock him into bucking. It was painful and it made hot bursts of delight flare out from my center to the tips of my toes and fingers. I was chanting obscenities and praise mixed with his name and the moment of climax was so gradual and so long that I lost track of it. Eric's mouth was on my neck as I came slowly and thoroughly.

"Bite!" It was a command and he followed it. I had one sharp, shocking orgasm on top of the gentler one and Eric growled in a foreign tongue as he finished with a deep shudder, pulling sips of blood and kissing my breasts and face.

"Lover." Eric's face was against my neck, kissing and licking sweat away. "Lover," he repeated.

I woke up quite a bit later, and felt a silly pang of disappointment.

"You said all night," I said, turning in Eric's arms. He had wrapped himself around me and I think he had fallen into what I called 'down time' while I slept. His laughter at my chastisement was loud and shook the bed. It felt like it'd been a long time since I'd seen him laugh that hard and it warmed me.

"You needed the rest," he said, leaning forward to kiss my temple and then my nose and then my lips for a long time. "Are you sore, lover?"

I twisted and rolled against him, intentionally teasing him and enjoying his resulting growl. "Yes," I admitted. "Not badly," I added, surprised by the shadow that passed over his eyes. "But I might walk bow-legged for a bit."

"I see," Eric said, doubtfully. I was only joking a little. I wouldn't have been surprised if I did walk funny tomorrow. He pulled away from my legs and then sat up in the bed.

"Eric! I was only kidding," I said.

"No, no," he said, his eyes smiling enough to let me know that he wasn't really offended. "We'll have to find an alternative."

"An alternative?" I asked, my eyes wide.

Eric lifted me from the mattress and I released a shocked squeal. He batted my hands away from my body. I couldn't really explain it after everything he had done to me, but I was suddenly feeling bashful. He proceeded to have me straddle his lap. He shimmied underneath me, the tip of his sudden erection brushing between my legs.

"No," he shook his head as I gaped at him. "That won't do. Turn around, Sookie. Put your hands on the bed."

I shivered as I turned and presented Eric with my ass. He pressed his hips against the back of my legs and ran his hand down my spine.

"This has possibilities," he said. "But I think it's a little soon, don't you?"

I had no response other than a hitch in my breath.

"Lay down on your side, lover."

I obeyed and Eric spooned me from behind, slipping his dick between my legs and sliding against my now slick lips.

"I like this," Eric commented, his voice as even as ever. I wanted to smack him. "I can touch your neck, your breasts, your stomach. But it's a bit tricky in the rhythm."

I thought he seemed to be doing all right.

"On your back," he said, fighting a grin.

I rolled my eyes but I shifted onto my back. Eric took my ankles and lifted them straight into the air before sinking right into me, making my back arch and my voice cry out in surprise and relief.

"Keep your knees together and cross your ankles," Eric instructed and I snorted, because that was what they taught debutantes and I wondered if he knew that. "Cross your ankles behind my head, Sookie," he corrected with a smirk.

I moaned as I obeyed. I could feel every inch of him and he was deeper and I was tighter and it hurt and it was wonderful.

"Perfect," he hissed, and he kissed the inside of my calf. He moved horribly slow and my fingers could only dig into the mattress as my back rolled and arched and shook in response to his purposeful torture.

I was begging incoherently and not once did Eric change his pace. When I came it was like a house of cards falling in slow motion and then Eric lifted my legs away and folded them against my stomach. I felt like a solid rock of pleasure all over again. Incomprehensibly wound tight and dense with wicked agony. He pumped hard and fast into me, his hands holding me still so I could only accept every slap of our flesh coming together with a pant or a moan of exhausted thanks. I came again – not with a whimper but with a bang - drawing his own orgasm out and he was careful to turn me to my side before collapsing.

It took me a few moments to catch my breath before I could speak.

"Is that an Eric Northman guarantee?" I asked. I could feel his head tilt against me in question. "At least two orgasms per coupling?"

He laughed again and even he sounded a little winded, I was pleased to note. He ran a hand up my stomach to squeeze my breast. "I enjoy your pleasure, lover," he said.

It wasn't quite a straight answer, not that I really needed one since I had meant it as a joke, but it made me feel like the attention he paid to my pleasure was maybe not a guarantee, but something he reserved. I wasn't vain enough, or secure enough, to think it was something he had reserved just for me, but I was confident enough in his compliment to believe that not everyone was as lucky as I was.

"So do I," I quipped and Eric laughed again.

It was an unspoken agreement between us that my body couldn't really take much more. Eric even hinted that he was pleasantly surprised by how much we had managed. I thought maybe he would look for a way to bow out gracefully for the last few hours before daylight, but instead he remained at my side, his hands stroking me gently, absently.

At a certain point, reality had to sink back in and when it did I did not receive it gracefully. I could feel it coming and I lashed out defensively.

"I think it's time for you to go," I said near four in the morning. I was looking at the clock thinking that this time last night Eric had put me in the shower to wash Gran's blood off of me. I was letting shame that I had refused to see coming spoil what I had just experienced. Eric stilled, and then rolled me to my back, his eyes searching my face.

"No," was all he settled on.

I grimaced and my hands flashed out to shove him. He didn't budge and it was probably the first time I realized how futile my strength was next to his. He took my hands in his and folded them gently over my stomach, holding them there.

"Sookie, I promised you all night," he said, his face steady. It was that gentle reminder of our previous teasing that reduced me to tears. I really hated myself in that moment, for demanding that Eric distract me with sex and then resenting him for it.

He accepted my tears, plucked them into his mouth with his fingertips and tongue when they rolled onto my lips. I kissed him as I cried, tried to push him away, and then finally settled and allowed him to carry on holding me.

"You're so patient," I murmured much later after my fit had passed.

"I am quite old," Eric said simply, brushing my temple with his nose. "Much of survival is allowing the worst things to pass you by."

That sounded pretty wise to me.

AN: I could give some psychological justification for them jumping into bed together but to be honest - I did it cause I wanted to. I hope you all enjoyed it! Leave me a review even if you think I made a terrible mistake. I'll try and return to regular weekly updates at this point. Probably only four chapters left. LOVE.