I Must Be Living Wrong

Disclaimer: The characters used herein belong exclusively to Charlaine Harris, and they are just playing in my sandbox for a short time.

Chapter 6

I waited.

His eyebrows shot up, and his face turned to stone, but nothing else happened. He didn't go hurtling backwards, he didn't leave. He couldn't have been more smug, if he had tried. He only smiled. His smile was dangerous, and I flinched inwardly. I was beginning to piss him off.

"Something, I forgot to tell you, my lover. That doesn't work anymore. The blood-bond, and all…Now, that you have got that out your system, we are going to finish this!" he promised.

Gotcha! His whole demeanor said to me.

Okay. Okay. Yikes! So no flying out of the house for Eric, it seemed. I scooted backwards against the headboard, and he let me. He was totally in charge and by the curl of his lips, and the glint in his eyes, it was obvious that he knew it.

I tried a different tack. "Eric, if we're going to talk, can we do it out of bed?" I inflected just the right combination of deference and resignation into my voice. I wanted more neutral territory around us if indeed we were to have the "talk."

"We are going to talk, lover, and no, we are going to do it right here. It will not take long." However, he straightened up, and flipped the quilt away from him. I grasped it and I pulled it to me as I drew my knees up to my chest, hurriedly putting some space between us. He was on his feet in a blur, and pacing next to the bed, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, his beautiful muscles rippling in the glow of the single candle. He was awesome, but I couldn't think of that now. He whipped about to face me, all sexy and forbidding. If I wasn't so mad, I'd have jumped him; my body knew exactly what it wanted to do, it was my mind that kept vacillating.

"You're afraid," he whispered, "and you should be." His eyes shot little sparks in my direction. No need to tell me twice. My eyes grew round as saucers. Note to self: do not antagonize Eric.

He ran a hand through his mane of hair, his eyes never leaving mine. "I have been through all manner of hell these past months as I have had to try and push thoughts of being with you aside and concentrate on keeping myself, those who owe me fealty and you alive a little bit longer. Do not think for once that Felipe has forgotten you or what brought you to our aid. You should fear what manner of use he might find for you without me there to temper things. Felipe and his minions have given me very little peace, and have watched me as though they believed I would lead a revolt any moment." I swore that I could almost hear him whisper, "In time," but the fury coming off him and his desire for violence, made me unsure and I was just glad it was not directed at me. At least, I didn't think so.

"My actions and thoughts of you have had to be guarded closely. If I could have come to you without bringing you harm, I would have, at first. Then I thought that to see you would just visit more harm upon you. Believe me when I tell you that I wanted nothing more than to come to you, and fuck you and taste you and try to make sense of all these things I have been feeling! And then you called me…and I had to come." He had my rapt attention and my fingers relaxed against the quilt. He could take your breath away without even trying, yet he had admitted that I held some power over him, and I thrilled to that knowledge.

As though sensing the change in me-yes, he could- he came towards me slowly, and sat next to me on the bed. He reached out and stroked my cheek with the back of his hand and a calm found its way through the swirl of anger in the bond. How did he do that? "I wanted to see you-I was not abandoning you. I wanted to talk about Rhodes and the time that I had stayed here with you. I wanted to speak of the night you rescued me from Sigebert, though it galls me to no end."

It was my turn to knit my brows at him. "My saving you seems to really bother you…"

"Your risking your mortal life bothers me. Especially as you won't tell me why you do this?"

Oh, no. Here it was. The Big Money question, that I avoided answering even when I lay alone in my bed at night. I looked away, and he placed two fingers beneath my chin and turned me so that I faced him, and I had to look at those beautiful sapphire eyes that sparkled in the muted light of my room. "Tell me, Sookie, why you would do this for me," he whispered, hoarsely, and I felt his voice like a caress gliding along my spine. He'd gone from angry fiend to sexy beast in minutes and I was having a hard time keeping up with him.

"We're friends, Eric and I…" He didn't let me finish as he cut across my attempt at avoidance.

"Sookie, lover, you had friends in Rhodes. You did not personally rush through an exploding building and fight to wake them, though any moment you could be killed. Bonded or not, you would have been free of me, like you are free of Andre. Do not insult my intelligence…Again, I ask you…why?"

His face was so close to mine, I could feel his cool breath play against my parted lips. I was trembling something awful. I wanted to run, and I wanted to stay. I wanted to tell him that I was his, but I wanted to still belong to myself. Instinctively, I knew he knew how I felt about him-he just wanted the power that the words gave him when spoken aloud.

He watched the warring thoughts play out on my face. He didn't push, he just waited for me to gather myself and answer him. My heart started to quicken its beat and his eyes became more alert, his fangs ran lower. Nervously, I licked my lips. His eyes swept downward, and his tongue mirrored the motion. Oh, God…

"Eric," I began, as his eyes met mine again, now, luminous, impatient, wanting.

"Say it," he demanded softly, as he pulled the quilt down from my body, and threw it aside. I made no move to cover myself; his voice held me, and all I could do was shake like a leaf on a tree. Or like that antelope, from the theory we'd kicked back and forth when he stayed with me. The one, that was being stalked by a deviant lion, who hadn't gotten the memo about the laws of the jungle. Eric didn't care about the laws; well, most of them anyway.

"Tell me why you came back for me, my lover, why you tremble in my arms when I hold you and make love to you, and push me away when I ask for answers." He pressed an open-mouthed kiss against the outside of my drawn up knees, and warmth suffused my body. Oh, damn…he's doing it again.

I was silent, if you didn't count the racket from the galloping of my heart, or the racing of my pulse.

"Do you want me to tell you what I believe, my lover?" he murmured, leaning over so that he could whisper against my ear, making me shudder, my body come alive again with instant arousal, my nipples tighten, painfully. Yeah, go for my weakness. His nose nuzzled my hair, touched the shell of my ear, burrowing below it. Unhurriedly, he sucked my earlobe into his mouth, biting down gently. Oh. Oh. Oh. I moaned and he let go…gradually. I felt his cool lips trailing down my throat, and his next words were whispered against my heated skin, my charging pulse.

"I think you love me, dear one," he rasped out, letting the tips of his fingers trickle down my bare thigh, his nails rake back upward. I nearly came apart, my hands reaching for his shoulders. He was faster, much faster. He grasped my hands in mid-air and held them away from him, although he knew I longed to touch him, pull him into me.

He shook his head. "Not yet…you have something to tell me, and I will wait no longer. Say it."