X.

I think the scent was what finally woke me. My brain just switched on and there it was. A muskiness that was enticingly familiar but now seemed to surround me much more strongly the moment I awoke. My sense of smell was so amplified.

I was in his arms, my head on his chest, and I had no idea at first that there was anything out of the ordinary.

Then I remembered.

I started to jerk away from him but his arms held me firmly. There was a faint buzz to his touching me, but I guess because I had been lying against him for some time, because it felt as if I had become more inured to his touch.

"You're fine," he said softly. "You don't have to run away. Relax. You're fine."

"Is this the part where you apologize?" I grumbled. I was going to give Pam a real piece of my mind when I caught up with her.

"You already forgave me. But I'm more than willing to apologize again and even grovel if you really need me to do so."

"When did I forgive you? I don't recall forgiving you, Eric. Was I even awake?"

He laughed. "When you were leaving with Liesel. That look? You'd already forgiven me by then. I know that sort of shy look. I'm very fond of that look. The look that means I totally have you and you're all soft about me."

"I sense a resurgence of insufferable self-confidence," I said, shaking my head against his chest.

Eric sighed dramatically.

"So groveling it is, then Lover… Sookie Northman, light of my life, forgive me for trying to figure out, in such a disturbing fashion, what the hell was going on with you the night you rose new and hardly fed, then vanished, multiple times. Forgive my roughness, harsh manner and complete lack of listening skills. I totally screwed up. I am prostrate over the fact that I frightened you and made you remember the evil German fairy I sliced to shreds with fine Scandinavian steel because he stole you and was vile to you. I figured out on my own that was the real problem, by the way. The whole similarity to what Dieter did? I got that. But… In the meantime… While you contemplate accepting my apologies, I forgive you for thinking I would ever deliberately do anything to harm you after spending the better part of a decade preventing anyone from harming you or seeking retribution if they succeeded in doing so. And I forgive you for the fact that I had to listen to your Grandfather lecturing me and endure his incredible arrogance when telling me all about how he could find you when I could not. And I assure you, Lover, that last one was really hard to bear."

"Eric, you really hurt me. It's not a joke. It really hurt and you really frightened me."

"I know, Lover," he whispered. "I know. And I am genuinely sorry for that, as I told you yesterday." He hugged me a little bit more tightly. "Stan told me that the hypersensitivity thing kind of happened to him, too. Unfortunately, he told me that after you left. Pam caught on without needing someone to tell her. I was only focused on the hunger end of things. I don't think Stan's hypersensitivity was as severe as yours at all. And Stan was always hungry. And the fact that you're not is not healthy in my eyes. Even now, look at you. You don't wake ravenous. This is just not normal."

"You don't wake up ravenous. Sometimes you've been awake hours before feeding."

"Sookie, I've been doing this for about 1100 years. You require much, much more blood than I do. You should be starving almost to the point of being out of control when you're a week old."

"Thalia's older than you are and she wakes early because she's so hungry. I've seen it. And she's much smaller than you are. Maybe everybody is just different, Eric. And you keep ignoring the fact that I wasn't completely human. Have you seen what the Fae eat? I have, and it's not like their appetites are the same as a humans at all. For the record, I'm getting by just fine. Except for the fact that I going to tell Pam off for letting you in the room without my knowledge and agreement."

"It would be unfair of you to blame her. I already sent her home to protect her from your wrath. And because she missed Tan, of whom she is so excessively fond. Anyway, she has to do what I tell her to do, so cut her some slack, okay?"

"Yeah, well, I'm not giving her any slack. I'm mad even if she has to do what you tell her. Lately, it seems I'm big on defiance. So going back to what you said yesterday, about how I can just tune you out sometimes? It's like before, with not being glamoured? The same kind of thing?"

"Maybe it is like not being glamoured. I really don't know. Why can you teleport? It's just you, your gift," he said shrugging his shoulders. "As Pam says, you are unique."

Suddenly, I started laughing and then I couldn't stop. It was the first time I'd really laughed since being turned. I actually, in spite of all odds, felt really happy lying there next to him. It was the happiest I'd been since… being human.

"What's so funny?" asked Eric.

"The idea that one of my 'gifts' is that I don't have to listen to you or do what you say!" I put my hand over my mouth to try to stifle my laughter a bit.

He said in a serious tone of voice, "I could still make you."

"Well, I guess you'd have to catch me first," I said with a chuckle.

"Oh really? Well, right now I've got you, haven't I?" he said with a slight edge to his voice.

He did have me. But not for long. I popped out of his arms, leaned against the wall on the other side of the room and pursed my lips at him, as if in a challenge. He sat up in the bed and then stood up, eyeing me with narrow eyes and a smirk on his face. He walked over to where he had his clothes draped over the back of the desk chair and turned his back to me. A blatant attempt to distract me with his oh, so attractive backside? I tensed, waiting. He moved quickly, but I popped faster. He arrived at an empty wall. After several rounds with similar results, he took his PDA out of his jacket and sat on the bed, checking his email and muttering in old Norse. I caught something that sounded like Bill Compton, nótt, which is the Norse word for night, and Fangtasia. It wouldn't be the first time he'd blamed Bill for ever having brought me into his bar that night ten years ago. Then he muttered in English that I was the stubbornest damn woman he'd ever known and that I'd been nothing but trouble for an entire decade. I let myself get distracted by his words rather than his thoughts and I laughed at him. And just then… he'd dropped the PDA and faster than I could even think, he caught me, grabbing my wrists lightly. I gasped. He was so fast that time! He looked down at me with a grin as wide as the Cheshire Cat and glowing eyes.

"Fair and square, Lover. Oh no you don't…" He leaned me into the wall, pressing lightly against me. "Don't you go popping out of my grasp. I'd 'have to catch you first' you say? Sassy woman. I was deliberately slow the first three times and you fell for it. You're such an easy mark, Sookie."

I looked up at him and pouted. "I guess I'll have to be more careful about being tricked, then."

He stared down at me and then smile faded. "What you need to do is listen, Sookie. To me. Really, you do."

That voice working its way inside my head… I dropped my eyes and shifted uncomfortably, fighting the desire to pop away from him. On top of it, the horsing around had made me feel weaker and hungry. We stood there, with his hands encircling my wrists and his pressing me against the wall for a moment. I finally looked back up at him. He still wasn't smiling.

"Sookie," he said in a low tone of voice. That slithery voice echoed inside my head, repeating my name, as well. It was quieter than it had been that first night but I still didn't like it. I stiffened.

"MmmmHmmmm," I said, starting to cringe internally, no longer meeting his gaze. I closed my eyes. It was now taking a lot of effort not to run.

"I am not like Dieter. I will not hurt you and I don't want you to be afraid of me," he whispered to me. Sookie echoed the slithery voice in my head, still softly. "I don't want you to be fearful."

"But your voice in my head scares me, Eric. It just does. I just hate it and if you do it when you're mad I just can't…"

"Then when I'm mad, I won't. When I'm mad I will talk to you. I won't touch you. But you need to listen, Sookie. It is part of what we are. And you need what I can tell you. You do."

He kissed my forehead and left his lips pressed against it. He released my wrists and interlaced his fingers with mine. I felt dizzy. Popping around right after waking took energy that I just didn't have in large supply.

Eric pulled back and frowned saying abruptly, "You really need to eat. You're so weak. You're practically swaying. Lover, you have to cut this out. You need to feed."

He let go of my hands and picked me up. He sat down on the bed with me in his lap, turned my back to his chest and then bit his wrist and pressed it to my lips. My nostrils flared and, even though I hesitated, finally the blood won. I sucked until he pulled his wrist away from me. Then he pushed my hair away from my neck, tightened his arm around my waist and bit me drawing just a bit of blood as I gasped with pleasure. I felt a rush of warmth, and energy permeating me. I felt the wound seal almost instantly when he pulled away.

"That's more like it," he murmured, rubbing his cheek and lips against my ear. "Not feeling you does not feel good, Lover. This is much better. Don't mess with it? Try to just leave it as it is now?"

I just leaned back against him, lost in the vibrant sensation of warmth that filled me. He reached over and picked up the phone with one hand and dialed for room service. He ordered six bottles of True Blood. Then I turned so my side was against his torso and I leaned against him. He rested his chin on the bridge of my nose. I felt… safe. After a few moments like that he bent his head lower and his hands tangled in my hair. He kissed me with slowly increasing intensity. He was very careful, as if trying to be very sure he did not hurt me. His hand stroked my breasts very gently, over my nightgown. I trembled in his arms. I felt this welling up of desire that I had buried deep inside myself.

"Tell me if I am hurting you, Lover. I'm worried I'll hurt you…"

I responded by embracing him passionately.

After we made love, he barred my way to the shower.

"I think we're leaving it very obvious about how things are between us until we leave, Lover." He said it with an evil smile.

I looked up at him and just sighed. After the recent days of no access to a shower, I was now going to be tormented by one I couldn't use? Well, there were some arguments just not worth having. We could go home after I finished work for the night and I'd do the last three days for October toward the end of the month, I said to myself.

Room service finally arrived, some 35 minutes after he'd ordered it. Eric made a snide remark about the Bellagio not being set to deal with vampire clientele, and left Hubert with the task of tipping the terrified room service waiter who looked at the big, snide vampire with awe. If only they knew that Hubert was much, much more frightening than Eric, I thought to myself. Hubert's glamour was really quite droll.

I sat on Eric's lap having four successive bottles. He encouraged my vehement complaints to my grandfather about the issue of taste as he drank the other two.

Finally, still in his arms, I looked at him and said, "So can you tell me what this garbage is you've been saying to Roberto? May I remind you I work for him? You better not mess that up, Eric. It's a great job…"

"You're endearingly naïve, Lover. I'm sure there is nothing I could say to Roberto to put him off having you work for him. You just watch out for him. He's a self-deluding cerebral pri…"

I was sorry I asked.

I finally kissed him to shut him up.