Two things I knew already from my very short life as a vampire: 1. Eric was my maker and he would always be there for me. I loved him and if I chose to, could truly spend the rest of forever with him. 2. I was covered in dirt and during my attempt to get to the surface; it had dug itself into every uncovered crevice on my body. I could feel it in my mouth, eyes, ears and nose. Since nobody is sexy covered in dirt, dried blood and 3-day-old makeup, I gave up on being beautiful for Eric and went straight to getting the dirt off of me. Rubbing my eyes and shaking it free from my hair, I felt Eric swoop down and pick me up like he had so many times before, like a groom carrying his new bride to their wedding bed. Or a vampire carrying his newly un-dead girlfriend to a shower. Whichever way you look at it, Eric was carrying me away from the cemetery in which I had awaken, and conveniently, up the stairs of my house. The front door had been left unlocked and before entering the kitchen, I had insisted that I could walk myself up to the bathtub, and he obediently put me down and let me in to the kitchen. He was the first to enter the house as he had been invited (and uninvited, and invited again) in by the former, living/breathing me. "Come in, lover." He said softly, and I was able to cross the threshold into my own home. There were no lights on, but this was hardly a problem. Rose petals and candles had created a path to my bedroom, and I followed them up the stairs and in to the bedroom, which had been changed during my three nights away. The windows had been closed off and covered with drywall and then painted over, light-proofing the room, and music was playing softly from a CD player that hadn't been there three days ago. The bed had been turned down, my white cotton sheets had been replaced by crimson satin sheets, which looked oh-so-inviting. I wanted very much to throw my Viking down on those sheets and do what we did best until the first ray of sunlight, but my attention was drawn to the bathtub, filled with steaming water and decorated with floating candles and 6 vases of red roses on the side where my soaps and shampoos used to be. It may have taken him a thousand years, but Eric Northman knew how to treat a lady.

I felt Eric's warm hands working the back zipper of my dress. I had never noticed how gentle they were before, but I had never been dead before either. I certainly had never thought of him as "warm" before, that was for sure. It took everything I had to not turn around quickly and knock him down onto the floor and have my mud-encrusted way with him, and he of course knew this. Taking his sweet time, I felt his tender kisses creep down the back of my neck and keep traveling to the small of my back, while wiggling down the tight dress. After having Eric many times before and knowing full well what he did to me (just the memories of it made my toes curl) I took this chance to give my dress one more little wiggle and let it slide down my legs. If I weren't covered in dirt, I would have called that my sexy-move. I climbed into the bathtub and sank down slowly, enjoying the heat and watching as the dirt fell off my skin and formed little swirling whirlpools in the water. "I think there might be room for one more in here…" I said in my naughtiest voice, which paled in comparison to Eric's ever so slightly accented words. With a smile showing the slighted hint of fang, he slowly (that big tease!) took off one of his shoes, then the other, and sloooowly unbuttoned his jeans, giving his hips a little wiggle before reaching for the zipper. I nearly bit my bottom lip off as he did this. Curious about my new superhuman strength, I gave up on waiting and pulled him into the bathtub with me, which did not work well as he is a very tall man who certainly didn't fold well unexpectedly. He made quite a splash, and left my roses and rugs drenched and the dozens of candles extinguished, and small ladders of smoke creeping upwards to the ceiling. Once he had situation himself across from me in a tub that's barely big enough for 5'6 me, his lips found mine and I thanked the heavens that I no longer needed to come up for air; I could kiss Eric all night. My hands instantly went to tugging his shirt off, and forgetting my strength, I tore the shirt to shreds. Realizing what I had done, he paused to smile and even laughed a little as I threw his shreds of shirt to the side and went back to him. The jeans were harder to take off due to their being soaking wet and him being twisted up around me. I tried to rip those off too, but he grabbed my hands and held them in his. I loved how both of mine could fit in just one of his, and his other hand found its way to my cheek.

"You're so beautiful." He said, and it sounded like the truest, most sincere thing I'd ever heard anyone say. There was a mirror on the wall across from us, and I turned to see what he saw. I was still muddy, with half of my hair wet and stringy, and half of it still in overly sprayed curls thanks to Amelia and Octavia. Other than the mud, I looked exactly the same…with one exception. My bathtub fun with Eric had brought out the true vampire that I would have to learn to live with, and two brilliantly white fangs had appeared in my smile. If this was beautiful to my Viking, then he was too perfect for words to me. "Why don't I get out and go get you a snack, and you clean yourself up. I think you've got some people who would like to hear from you."

Oh my stars. I hadn't even thought about my two roommates and Sam. Were all vampires this selfish? Or did they sprout a conscious after the horniness was taken care of? Eric climbed out of the tub in his soaking wet jeans and wiggled out of them, dropping them on the bathroom floor. Maybe I didn't have to talk to anyone tonight…would it be too much to ask for just one night of just me and Eric? Grabbing a towel to cover his naked self, Eric turned back towards me and planted a light kiss on my forehead before vanishing quickly downstairs. I wonder if I could move that quickly yet, or if that, like glamouring, needed practice. Immediate effects or not, vamp-speed sprinting was probably best not done in my bathtub. Or in the nude. Remembering that the shampoos and soaps were gone from their normal spot, I stretched and was able to reach into the cabinet under the sink without getting the rug under it even more wet from Eric's big splash. There are nice things about being dead, like never having to shave your legs again. I remembered Bill saying that vampires look exactly the way they looked the minute they died. Thank goodness one of my last human deeds was shaving! I found the shampoo where I expected it to be and went at my hair, scrubbing out mud, hairspray and probably a worm or two. I halfway wished he had put me in a coffin so I wouldn't have to deal with the mud, but the bath had been quite fun…

By the time Eric returned, I was drying off with one of the towels that managed to stay dry during the tidal wave I had caused. I debated dropping it on the floor when he walked into the bathroom, but I noticed he had brought with him two glasses of red wine. Okay, scratch that. He had brought with him two glasses of blood in wine glasses. Classy: I was halfway expecting True Blood in the bottle or a stolen blood-bag with a straw punched through it, Capri-Sun style. "What's that?" I asked, taking one of them from his hand, standing on my tippy-toes to plant a kiss on his lips.

"B positive. It's all I could find before you broke ground." I was still a little repulsed at the thought of drinking blood, but I swirled it around in the glass like I had seen the wine connoisseurs do on TV, trying to be all cutesy. The scent of it hit me like a brick wall, and before I even realized how good it smelled, I was reaching for the second glass he had in his hands. I saw his smile through the glass as I drank the last drop. I seriously thought about licking the glass, but didn't. Now I was ready for things-vampires-do-best-#2, and Eric quickly found himself without a towel and between a lovely new set of satin sheets. "So I take it you like the new bed?" He asked, that naughty smile still on his lips. I didn't give him a chance to speak for the rest of the night.