II.
It was already 6:35 pm when I pulled into the drive. I was running late, really late, because Tanya had car problems and I covered for her until almost 6:30 pm. Sam finally told me to take off because she was on her way and he said he'd cover her station so I could go. I guess he could tell I was edgy and he saw me texting someone from my cell phone in the office. He didn't ask who I was texting but I was sure he knew. After my argument with Bill, I was pretty convinced that Eric had Sam keeping tabs on me too, and that Eric probably even knew my schedule directly from Sam. Right as I was leaving Letty, the new new girl we'd hired, smacked into me with two mugs of beer in her hand and spilled beer all over my shirt. I had an extra shirt at work but I was already running so late I didn't want to change there. I shivered as I went out into the brisk air with my wet shirt. I didn't want to get my jacket saturated, so I just dealt with it. It was a good thing it was a short drive home.
Eric was already waiting in the rocker on the back porch when I pulled around back and parked next to his car. How he'd gotten to my house from Shreveport twenty minutes after sunset was a mystery. He was perfectly still and not rocking at all, I guess he was on downtime even though he'd probably been awake for less than an hour. Vamps really conserve their energy since they are so tuned into everything when they are awake. But I'm sure he'd heard my car approaching way out on Hummingbird Road, though. As I got out of the car he rose quickly and gracefully. He was wearing black jeans with one of his dramatic belts and a dark red shirt. Not even a jacket and it was in the fifties. He had his hair pulled back. He was looking good, as always, I said to myself. As I got to the steps I noticed that he'd taken off his boots and was just in socks. I really don't get how he doesn't feel the cold. I mean, sure, he's dead, but he really seemed to love feeling warmth, so… Oh well.
He kissed me on the lips and I felt all kinds of butterflies inside. This little dance of ours had been going on for about three weeks and I had to be honest with myself that my resolve was fading. Although I'd often seen Eric as being flamboyant and somehow larger than life, in this pursuit he was quietly relentless. He was like water wearing down stone. He was visiting me several times a week, even if it was just to sit and chat at Merlotte's for twenty minutes while I worked and then drive back to Shreveport. He called me every night he didn't see me. On Sunday evenings he sat and watched movies with me and we snuggled. We made out but he never pushed for more other than occasionally teasing. He didn't even act upset about it, which really threw me for a loop. We still hadn't had 'the talk' because I was pretty much steadfast in my refusal to listen to any such 'talk'. I told him anything that had happened when he had stayed with me was completely irrelevant in my eyes because he hadn't been himself and that I had no interest in listening to any of it. Frankly, I think he was relieved. I know I was. The less drama, the better, as far as I was concerned.
Standing there on my back porch, I looked up at him and had the vague recollection that last night, before I'd fallen asleep, I had admitted to him that I missed him. The truth, I said to myself, is that in spite of all odds, I really enjoy his company. And as much as he can totally piss me off, he really gets me. I could not say that about any other man I'd been with. And as much as the fact that a thousand year old Viking vampire was the only guy I knew who seemed to get me, ought to upset me, it didn't at all. The bond, our bond, had sort of removed whatever last veil there was separating my identification with Eric as just a person. He might think differently from me, act differently from me, have different motivations and even be very devious. But I liked him. And if I was honest with myself, really honest, maybe I more than liked him. And why would he even be going to all this trouble if he didn't mean it, I asked myself? It's not like he isn't busy and doesn't have plenty of other options. And he could be satisfied now with remembering, rather than just knowing, that he had had me, if that was all he was after. These were the things I contemplated in recent weeks during lulls in 16 hour long days at Merlotte's. The nagging voice of self-doubt, distrust and indecision, was slowly but surely being drowned out by Eric's persistence. Some part of me was still afraid of getting hurt again. But now, when I was with him, I really had never felt safer from being hurt in my entire life, and not just safe from being physically hurt by anyone. When we were apart sometimes negative thoughts preyed on me, whispering in my mind. But even those were getting worn down by Eric's patient persistence.
He looked down at me with a grin and chuckled at the way I smelled.
"Lover, I really thought you preferred gin?"
"Don't even get me started…" I was really shivering. It had soaked through onto my bra, so I was soaked to the skin and my thermometer near the door said 52 F.
I was so shivery that I dropped my keys trying to open the door and he swiftly picked them up and unlocked the door for me. The house was dark but warm. Octavia was in New Orleans this week and I had no idea where Amelia was. Well, strike that. I had a pretty good idea she was with Tray because I now knew that Tray watched me for Eric while Sam was away, too. Probably Amelia had been instructed to make herself scarce, I thought to myself.
"I need to get out of my clothes, I am just freezing." I walked off toward my room.
After turning on a lamp, I pulled off the wet shirt and started fussing with my bra. It was a new bra and the lower hook was so damn hard to undo. I really had to remember to try to loosen it a bit. But I suddenly had help getting it unhooked. Then he stroked his finger down my spine and kissed the top of my head as I slipped off the bra. In response I leaned back against him and he wrapped his arms around me. He was cool against my bare back. I shivered but it wasn't really just a temperature thing. I let out a deep sigh as I rested against his chest. He tentatively uncrossed his arms and shifted his hands from my waist up to my breasts, cupping them gently, then softly passing the palms of his hand over my nipples, which were so hard because I was so cold. I sighed again with the pleasure of it. I pulled away from him, turned around and looked up at his face, and into those dark blue eyes, which in turn just seemed to melt into mine. I put my hands on his shoulders and turned my head, offering a kiss and he just enveloped me. I pulled out his shirt and slipped my hands under it, caressing him while we kissed. He bent slightly lower and kissed my ear and my neck and then suddenly pulled away from me. He looked down at me with his fangs run down and with clearly constrained desires. I had felt this flood of desire through the bond but it was like it was wrapped in a fine net, to keep it from spilling out. He was being so cautious, so careful with me. I closed my eyes and thought for just a moment about what I really wanted. Then I withdrew my hands from under his shirt and took his hand and led him toward my bed.
We undressed each other without speaking, our hands and lips caressing each other. I lay back against my pillows, looking at him, and thought how odd it was for me not to feel shy. But I didn't. It wasn't exactly the thought that we had done this before, because really he was different. It was some indefinable sense that really I could only describe as a sense of belonging. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at me as if to discern if I really meant it, that I really wanted him, that this was finally okay. That somehow touched me. I reached up and touched his face and drew him to me to kiss him.
Then he was all over me, in me, around me as we rode some crest of passion that was much stronger than what I had remembered. And what had he remembered? It seemed like he remembered everything. Everything I liked, everything I was too shy to ask for, everything. And I tried to look him in the eyes as much as I could, knowing he liked that, until sometimes the arc of pleasure just carried me away as he just seemed to roar through me. What I recalled later, more than all the pleasure, more than the murmurings as he kissed me, bit me, told me how beautiful I was, was a moment when his face was near mine and he picked up and pressed his lips into the palm of my hand and told me in a hoarse voice, looking me in the eyes,
"I love you, Sookie. You're mine and I love you."
Then he resumed, thrusting into me with great ardor, always looking me in the eyes even if he had to position us so that he could see my eyes in the mirror over my dresser. The intimacy in the way he looked at me was just overwhelming. This was not a man who could ever make you worry he was thinking about anyone or anyplace else. He was totally present. I did not speak, other than to cry out in pleasure again and again. And as I emerged from the enveloping fog of passion, his head on my chest, my hands stroking his hair, I felt almost lost. It was like going outside and looking around after a big storm and thinking it was all surreal. His words and voice seemed to echo in my head.
I felt him rubbing my inner thigh and became aware of his rubbing his blood into the bite wound there. Then he shifted up on his elbow to tend to a similar wound on my left breast. I gasped and he turned to look at me, surprised. As his hair had slipped away from his shoulder I saw a rapidly healing bite wound. I had bitten him, hard enough to leave a wound. I touched it, kind of horrified at myself.
"I… I can't believe I bit you. I'm so sorry…" I was so taken aback. I didn't even remember biting him. Then I had a flash that I had bitten him several minutes ago, after his declaration and that he had then bitten my neck. It was all a swirl in my mind. I must have bitten hard if it still showed at all, some minutes later. That meant, too, that I'd had more of his blood. I had had small amounts of his blood before when we were lovers but only from bites he had made himself- his lips, his tongue. This was quite different. It was almost like another exchange, I thought to myself. I was still shocked I'd bitten him.
He just smiled and then held my face in his hand and kissed me. "It's fine," he whispered. He seemed really happy, actually. He gently tipped my head to the side and nipped his healing finger again and rubbed blood into the wound on my neck. He looked back over the others and squeezed a drop more onto the wound on my breast and rubbed gently. I arched toward him with a soft moan and he turned to me and smiled randily.
"Really?" he chuckled and his hand stroked down my waist and hips. "Well, I think you should eat something, Lover. We can watch the movie and then see if you are up for more. I will always be up for more," he said with a smirk.
"Um, I can see that," I commented with a laugh, finally finding my voice.
I lay there looking at him, looking into his eyes. My heart was just brimming with things I couldn't say. I guess he could feel them because he seemed completely at ease and happy with things just as they were.
He rose, went into the bathroom and washed up then looked around for his clothes. After dressing, he extended a hand to me, gently pulling me up from the bed. I picked up my clothes and put them in my dirty laundry basket and then took out a pair of soft sweatpants, panties and a sweatshirt and quietly dressed. He helped me pull the sweatshirt over my head and then stroked his fingers through my hair. We kissed again and then left the bedroom.
While I busied myself reheating some leftover roasted chicken for a quick dinner, Eric spent time checking email and making a few calls. He didn't seem to mind being there while I ate at all. So different from Bill, I thought. He told me Pam said hello in the midst of reading something and then moments later rose and examined the item taped to the refrigerator door. He stood there for a few moments and then glanced around the kitchen near the phone and retrieved a pen from the glass near the memo pad there. He removed the paper from the fridge door, sat down at the kitchen table and wrote a note. Then he rose and carefully put the note back in the exact same place and then returned the pen to its place. He sat back down and went right back to doing email. With a chicken drumstick in my hand I went over and perused the recent addendum. I almost spewed my mouthful of chicken at the refrigerator door. I shook my head. 'Held in high regard?' Now he was going to tell me how I ought to feel about having Bill around?
As if in response to my reaction he said, "You know Sookie, I really don't see what your problem is with having someone look out for you," without even looking away from his phone. "It's not like you haven't had your share of close calls, now is it? I can think of quite a few times you've been in harm's way."
"Why Bill, Eric? Why Bill? Do you know how annoying it is to have Bill following me around, lurking outside my house? For weeks."
"Well, Bill is rather a lot sharper than Bubba is, and I seem to remember his offering to give his life for yours, so I'm going with that, Lover." Still not even bothering to look up…
"Well, I'm sure that's going to be over about a minute after he realizes what's going on between us, and considering how much you and Pam have tried to goad him, I really think you ought to consider it the other way around, like what he could do to get back at us Eric." I gave him a cold look.
Now he looked up at me. "He already knows, Sookie. He already knows that you're bound to me. He knows what that means and he still wants to watch over you. So it's not a concern."
I stopped chewing and swallowed. "What do you mean? What does it mean? I thought it was just that Andre wanted to control me? Other than just the feelings stuff, what does it mean?"
"You're mine. The only way that another vampire can have you, unless you wish to leave me, is by killing me. It's not going to fade. It's permanent." He looked me in the eyes as he delivered the short speech.
I felt a chill run down my spine. I thought about Andre and suddenly felt sick. Permanent? And somehow I had this feeling that Andre's rules of the bond would probably have been quite a bit different from Eric's. I didn't think that leaving part would have been an option, for instance. I remembered Andre coolly telling me that my human life as I knew it was over. I looked at Eric and felt amazement. "Why? Why would you do that for me if it lasts permanently? If he wanted you to control me, and he found out that it didn't work, they could have killed you for lying to him, couldn't they?" Would Sophie-Anne have done that, I wondered?
"Well, it never came to that, so it's not relevant. And why wouldn't I take the risk? There is always the option of saying 'please' to get you to work. And you were already mine. It just made it more official."
Already his? What was he talking about? "But I was with Quinn, Eric." I looked at him like I basically thought he was crazy.
"Everyone makes mistakes, Lover. We both did. But since you say don't want to discuss the past, let's just agree that I can have anyone I want help to keep you safe, alright?"
Quinn was a mistake? Well, I guessed that was a fair assessment. I flashed on Quinn offering to kill Eric. Quinn killing Andre. Quinn was really eager to kill people, I thought in retrospect. Eric had never said anything even remotely similar about a potential rival, I noted to myself. I tried not to dwell on the Quinn and Andre thing because I still was very uncomfortable with it and frankly still worried about what Eric could think or do if he found out. Pretty much everyone agreed that Sophie-Anne likely ended up dead just because Andre hadn't survived Rhodes. He had been masterful at keeping her safe for centuries. I was actually quite sorrowful that Andre's death put her further in harms way. I felt guilty about it, even though I had not had a direct hand in Andre's death and even though I knew his death put me further from harm. Ignoring those thoughts, I said again, "But seriously, Eric, I was with Quinn. What were you thinking?"
He worked his jaw a bit before answering, scrolling through email on his stupid Blackberry. I was definitely getting the idea that the phone was a way to create a bit of distance, so that he could avoid getting into an argument with me.
"I was biding my time until he screwed up, Sookie. It was a matter of time. I am patient. And by the time we were at Rhodes I knew you would be mine. Although it was rather repellant every time the man laid a hand on you or fucked you. But I knew I would have you. I was certain of this. I was even more certain after the bond. You would not stay with him. You were mine." He looked up to stare at me and his eyes glowed.
Mine, mine, mine. Geez, enough with the possessive stuff, already, I thought to myself. These vampires just wrote the book on possessiveness.
One thing had still floated around in my mind leaving me uneasy for months now. I had to ask. I just had to. "Did you know what Andre was planning?" I asked, feeling almost fearful of the answer.
He looked me directly in the eyes. "No. No, I did not know. I'd already felt your fear of him. You had been afraid of him since New Orleans. I felt your terror when he tried to bind you to him. It was one of those times when you make a spur of the moment choice. This was the best option. I wanted you and I chose to protect you. I chose you even over my own interests, because believe me, if Andre and Sophie-Anne had found out that I had lied about being able to keep you in my thrall we would have had some serious back-peddling to keep ourselves safe. But still, we were lucky he accepted my idea. I couldn't expect to kill him and have things go well. But the thought of you being bound to him was… not an option."
I kind of shuddered internally. I didn't want to go there as to why my being bound to Andre would not be an option in his mind. I was thinking I'd just trust him on that one. And killing Andre was an option that he had even considered in those moments? That kind of stunned me because really, other than all-out fights and someone attacking us, Eric didn't seem too prone to wanting to kill people.
"That night at Merlotte's Felipe seemed sort of surprised that I was bound to you. Why?"
"It's not a common thing. Do you want to watch the film?" he said rising, with a smile. It seemed like a very abrupt change of subject.
"Okay. Why don't you set it up while I clean this up," I said referring to the plates and glass. He nodded and left the kitchen.
He changed the subject so quickly, I thought to myself. It made me uneasy that I still really didn't quite understand what the bond represented. His words in Rhodes still echoed in my mind "I like being like this. You'll like it, too." In fact, that had been his reply when I had asked if the bond would fade. He hadn't wanted, then, to tell me it was permanent. What else was there that he might not be telling me? I wondered.
As I washed up I recalled Claudine warning me that I was getting sucked into the vampire world right before I went to Rhodes. She said it would mark me as theirs. She had been right. Although I still didn't know exactly what it all meant, in their world I evidently now 'belonged' to Eric. That sense of belonging that I felt earlier… I reflected on that. It didn't feel uncomfortable, or like something I didn't want exactly. I guessed it was that there was a distinction to be made. I wasn't thrilled about the belonging to someone concept. Part of me, though, didn't balk at the idea of belonging with Eric. I still felt confused about my feelings. I could much better separate his feelings from mine than I could months before but wondered, in the evolution of my feelings for him, how much was me, how much was him? How much was the bond itself? Did it even matter, if we were happy?
The movie had beautiful cinematography, gorgeous costumes and scenery and a lot of fighting, which Eric seemed to enjoy, although he seemed to think some of it was really like a comedy. My mind was totally elsewhere, however, thinking about the bond, what it meant, and about what Eric had told me during sex. He'd said he loved me. And I could not reply. But he seemed so confident about everything being fine. In the past year, both when he was with me, and then later, in Rhodes, he had asked me if I'd loved him, meaning during that other time, and I said maybe, sort of. Maybe Pam was right, I thought to myself. Maybe I've just been in denial. Maybe it began then but just grew from there. Or maybe it began even before then. I had really missed the real Eric, who had been my friend, and to whom, I had to admit, I was really attracted, even though I thought he was so political and sly. I had missed him both when he was cursed, and afterwards, when he was angry and unpleasant for months. Now the real Eric I enjoyed was back in full measure, but with an added tenderness with me that really, I'd have to say, was not all that different from that displayed by the amnesiac Eric. He certainly seemed quite confident, really ever since the bond, that I did love him, I thought to myself. I mean, really, there was no other way I could interpret it. Maybe I did and I was lying to myself because it was safer.
What could it mean to love a vampire? To really love him? It frightened me because all I could think about was growing old and losing his affection. There was no way I would ever want to be turned. I would not want to lose my life, aging and mortal though it might be, for their lifestyle. Part of me now just felt like I was in an even greater maelstrom of confusion over everything. My mind was just spinning.
In the middle of a striking scene in a green bamboo forest, Eric pulled me onto his lap and leaned me against him so that my back was against his chest and my head rested against his jaw. Without looking away from the screen, he said softly,
"It will all be fine, Sookie." He wrapped his arms around me, kissed my temple and went on watching the movie.
After the movie he carried me to the bedroom and we made love again, but it was quieter, gentler, and with more attention on other means, as if he was afraid he was going to leave me too sore. After snuggling in bed with me for almost an hour afterwards, holding hands and talking about the movie, about the coming trip to Vegas, about all kinds of things, he rose and said he was going to go. I felt a stab at my heart that he wouldn't stay until I fell asleep but said nothing.
After he dressed, he texted something on his Blackberry and commented that he was telling Bill he was leaving for the evening. I got mad at that.
"Well he better not set foot over here. The house is well warded and there's no reason for him to be around here. If anyone approaches I'm sure he'll hear them on the gravel."
"Lover, I thought we had an agreement?" He looked down at me with reproachful eyes.
"I never agreed with the idea of having Bill around my house, Eric. And I'm not too keen on his knowing about your comings and goings, on top of it." I sat against my pillows with my arms crossed over my bare chest. The whole idea of Bill knowing when Eric was here and when he left and therefore likely when we were having sex was just plain gross to me. It was making me no better than Bill had been with me when he brought Selah Pumphrey around, flaunting her in my face, knowing I could read the woman's every damn thought. But I was too proud to get into that whole thing with Eric. While I knew that Bill had to follow Eric's edicts, I felt like this put me in the role of stooping to Bill's level of behavior.
"Alright, then we don't have an agreement. But Bill Compton is watching over you and your house, Sookie." He leaned over and kissed me on the lips, stroking my cheek as if to say he was sorry to be upsetting me. He said he'd lock the door behind him and then he left.
I sank down into my pillows. I was mad to be left alone and even madder that Bill was somewhere out there, minding my business. I got up from the bed after a few minutes, slipped on my nightgown and went to the kitchen for a glass of milk. I grabbed a pencil and made a new note on my word.