A/N: Thank you, friends, for all your kind reads, adds, and words! I'm glad some of you feel there is more to tell. Looking forward to hearing what you think…

Chapter 7

Despite my concerns, the relationship was progressing. Over the past few weeks, Eric and I had fallen into a loose schedule. On nights he worked, I would go to his place and wait until he came home. On nights I worked, he would do the same at my house. When we were both occupied, whoever finished first would let the other know where they were headed. Though a little precious for Eric's taste, the routine was comforting.

Finishing up an evening shift, I checked my phone—I hadn't received a text, so I messaged Eric I was on my way. I was excited; I looked forward to my time alone in his house. It felt like I was learning something about him by osmosis.

Upon arrival, I was pleasantly surprised to find Eric already there. Though excited to see him, his activity brought me up short.

Eric was…cooking. His long, lanky figure stretched out above the stove, flipping something in a well-worn cast iron pan. He turned as I entered, effortlessly stylish. The action just did not seem to fit.

"You're cooking!" I exclaimed redundantly. He waited for me to continue, amused. "Is that…steak?!" I asked, taken aback though suddenly starving. He raised his eyebrows.

"Nothing gets past you, lover."

"Why are you doing that?!"

He shrugged.

"You feed me, I feed you." It seemed so simple I couldn't argue. He kissed me swiftly. I sat on the counter to supervise, peering suspiciously into the pan.

"...do you know what you're doing?"

"Don't I always?" I shot him a look. "Vikings love all sorts of flesh. You must know that. Sometimes I buy a dry-aged NY strip and cook it just for the smell."

"That is…more bizarre than I possibly could have imagined. Eric Northman has a meat fetish. So kinky." He winked mischievously at me, finishing the sear. I had to admit, the crust looked impeccable. Damn him.

He sat down with me to watch as I ate, his eyes bright with anticipation. It gave him such pleasure I almost laughed. I couldn't fault him, though—I felt a similar pride when I fed him. The comparison made me curious.

"Tell me what it's like," I asked as I finished.

"'It'?"

"You know, drinking me…"

"Mmm. Haven't I described it before?" Eric asked, circling my knuckles with his thumb.

"Tell me again," I breathed, already growing flushed. He chuckled.

"How to put it more memorably… You know the phrase la petite mort?"

"'The little death?'" I translated.

"Yes—the French euphemism for orgasm."

"Even kinkier…"

"But accurate, I think. La petite mort—a little shock of death. When you orgasm—I think that is the closest you will ever be to feeling like I do when I taste you. Heightened, beyond, suspended. Outside of time." He shifted in his chair, bringing his face closer to mine. "When you think of how you feel in those moments—weightless, absent, vibrating, free—death is not terrifying. It becomes…something to seek. Something to desire. Completing."

I exhaled unsteadily, filled with the import of his words. Though he hadn't strayed from the subject, I knew he was communicating something deeper.

"That's beautiful…"

"Yes," he grinned hungrily. "It's fucking gorgeous." He leaned across the table and kissed me lightly. I stared at him, blushing.

"Now I have to ask you something..." he started solemnly. I waited, concerned. He took a deep breath. "...how was my steak?"

I sighed through my amusement. Even his comic timing was impeccable.

We spent the rest of the evening laughing, talking, and touching. His words at dinner stayed with me, though, and I found myself thinking about la petite mort into the morning, long after he had died for the day. His analogy was flattering, but it also reminded me of my proximity to death. Eric lived in death. He dealt death. And I knew on some level I didn't fully understand that he wanted me to partner with it. My familiar anxieties and fears found me as I drifted into sleep.

And then I was dreaming. A thick fog surrounded me. Eric was staring at me, hard, lustful, and impenetrable. I felt his teeth snap into my neck, cold and aggressive, heard his snarl reverberate through me. His fingers curled around my head, grasping and searching; he quenched his desire with a violence that held no regard for me. My body seized in panic as my chest constricted. My life source began to flicker.

I woke, not in a sudden, relief-filled snap, but in a heavy, dread-laden fade into consciousness. I knew the dream mattered, whether or not it was real. Eric was lethal. Even though I had begun to tenuously trust him, there was only so much I could hope to expect.

I looked at the clock—it was late afternoon. Eric was stretched out beside me, still and exquisite. My eyes ran over his body, drinking him in. I had to purposefully shut them to return to my thought process. Sitting with him like this, when he was vulnerable and available, was almost unbearable. Looking at his face or body for any period of time felt like falling into a stupor, but seeing him absolutely unprotected was dangerous in a different way: there was nothing to distract me, nothing to keep me from endlessly objectifying him. If I wasn't careful, everything else just faded away.

It shouldn't. Not now. Dangerous or open, lethal or gentle—I didn't know what version of Eric to focus on, what aspects to consider. Over the past few days, I felt my heart begin to crack open. It wouldn't be long before the glimmer of emotion I felt started to shine. I had to be careful; I had to think it through.

When I opened my eyes again, Eric was conscious. The tiniest of changes, but the results were devastating: those piecing blue eyes altered the entire room. He was no longer an object to admire. He was now unfathomably arresting. If he knew even a tenth of the affect he had on me, he would be insufferable. The thought almost made me smile, but I was too shaken.

I knew he sensed my mood. He did not respond immediately, either with affection or by pulling away. Instead, he stared at me with cool remove—reserved, motionless. His eyes were guarded, almost empty. It did not make things easier to say.

"Hi," I started meaninglessly.

"Greetings," he returned.

"We have to talk." Cliché, but effective. Eric righted himself against the headboard. His expression revealed nothing. I turned to face him.

"We've never set…expectations for this." Even as I began the conversation, I couldn't help feeling everything was wrong. We were both naked, and all I wanted to do was fall face-first into his arms on the vast bed. Or feel him violently impale me against the wall. Neither required calm, rational thinking and speaking. Still, I continued.

"You've said it before, but not lately. You want me to be yours. What…what does that mean to you?"

"Fucking. Feeding. Exclusively," he answered simply. My heart sank a little. These were hardly romantic assurances. "If I claim you, you agree to be mine—you're recognized as mine by other vampires, and I have exclusive rights to your body and blood. A blood bond is more serious—we are tied, metaphysically, existentially together; you will always feel me and I you." He shifted forward and sought my eyes. "You know these things. You know I wish them of you. What are you asking, exactly?"

"I…I don't know," I answered honestly. "What you said, earlier, about death, about seeking it out, desiring it… That scares me. What you are, Eric…scares me," I started, quietly. The thought of becoming intimately bound with something beyond life sped my pulse and chilled my blood. It was outside of my ability to articulate. I settled for expressing my more nameable fears. "Also, you've killed people." He nodded. "You could harm me."

"I haven't," he stated.

"I know. Well, not with malice," I qualified. He knew I was right.

"I'm a vampire."

"Yes. And…I have no idea what it would mean for me to allow those things you want." Eric remained quiet for a long time.

"I am trying—very hard—not to push you, lover." His ancient control was etched on his face now, as it had been so often lately.

"I know that," I replied quietly. "It still weighs on me." He pressed his lips to my temple. The kiss was not chaste—it inflamed my blood—but he did not push further. "What do those things…mean for you?" I asked hesitantly. Though we had never discussed it, I realized in that instant it would crush me to hear he would consider seeing, kissing, drinking, fucking others.

Eric understood exactly what I was asking, and while he wasn't offended, he was adamant. "You are already what I want," he answered immediately. "Haven't I told you how superlative you are? How you summon and then somehow exceed all my desires? Gods, woman, I float in your blood when we fuck. I'm blinded when I drink you. Do you really think I can return to anything less?"

"So you're telling me I have no choice, then?"

"Not in the slightest," he continued calmly. "I'm telling you there is nothing to fear."

"Except your nature," I answered. "Except your past. Except every instinct you have that tells you to drink me down, to end me. I am…special. And at some point I might be outside of your control." I trembled even as I said the words.

"My instincts don't tell me that. Never only that," Eric amended. He moved his lips into my hair. His patience stunned me. "They tell me to do this." He circled my ribcage and found my breasts. "And this," he continued, stroking lightly across my stomach. "And this," he whispered, easing me backward on the expanse of his wide bed, his hands capturing mine, his mouth traveling downward, skimming my sex.

"Eric…" I tried to return to the topic at hand, but there was no resolve in my voice. He knew it, but he didn't laugh. He didn't tease me. I appreciated it beyond measure. Acquiescing, I tangled my fingers in his hair and pressed his head into me. I felt him inhale. My blood throbbed.

"You know this won't fix anything," I managed, one last attempt to gain closure while his mouth softly explored.

"Yes."

"You're doing this so I forget what I said."

"No," he whispered emphatically.

"You want me to remember how good this feels." He broke away to look up at me, his eyes burning.

"I want you to remember how I feel."

He resumed. Everything in me coiled toward him, around him. He drew me in without even trying. I began to move against him erratically.

"Oh, lover," he hummed. "This is only the beginning."

I knew he didn't mean the act as coercion. He meant it to demonstrate his depth of feeling. Even still, the pleasure he brought was…outside of insight. He felt like biting into caramel, running my hands through warm sand, smelling green grass and sawdust and warm, pulsing life, not death. Tie myself to this? It was impossible even to begin to push the thought away, let alone deny it.

Eric continued, measured and wild, impossible and real, excessive and simple—him. I tasted sweetness in my mouth, the texture silky and warm and indescribably delicious. A thousand shards of light glittered behind my eyes, an enveloping, shimmering sandstorm. Though nothing, I knew, in comparison to Eric's experience of the world, I felt nearly obliterated by the sensations sweeping through me. His tongue sped against me, pulling, pushing, battering, caressing. I had a feeling he knew. That he sensed it.

"So…sweet," I murmured, unable to put another name on the sensation. It was the first time I felt this level of gentleness, restraint, and concern from him. I always loved Eric's intensity, his fire, but this was something beyond. When his fingers entered me at last, I had no will to hold back.

I shuddered against him, quietly, softly, velvet smooth. La petite mort… I felt his eyes on me rather than saw them, his vast longing pouring out of him, tempered by enviable, matchless control. I saw it in my mind's eye as I came: Eric was inescapable. I felt helpless and sated and wildly unsure of myself. But I was suddenly certain of him as I never had been before. I opened my eyes.

He met my gaze—steady, calm, even. Something to seek. Something to desire. I stared back.

I was beginning to understand.