Chapter 7: Just A Little Heat

"He could not forget the touch of her arms around his neck, impatiently felt as it had been at the time; but now the recollection of her clinging defense of him, seemed to thrill him through and through,-to melt away every resolution, all power of self-control, as if it were wax before a fire." –Elizabeth Gaskell

EPOV

I was on my way to a new record. I'd been seeing Sookie for just over three and a half weeks and I wasn't sick of her. If anything, the opposite was happening. The more I saw her, the more I wanted to be around her. Everything was clicking like it was supposed to be, or so I'd heard. Imagine my surprise when it dawned on me one day that Sookie and I were actually friends. I'd never really bothered with that in the 'relationships' I'd been in in the past. They were all based on intense sexual attraction and the rest was just filler between orgasms.

With Sookie, it seemed to be the total opposite. That's not to say I wasn't extremely attracted to her, because I definitely was. Keeping my hands off of her was difficult, at best, and after that night I spent at her house it only got worse. The good thing was, that night seemed to kick things into gear. We'd spent a decent amount of time making out in her bed before she pulled the plug and scampered off to the kitchen to make us breakfast.

I was expressly forbidden from touching anything sharp and when I got hit with spatter from the frying bacon, I was banished to the other side of the kitchen entirely. Apparently Sookie considered me a culinary liability. Her words, not mine. She invited me to go along to her brothers but I'd passed on the invite and took a rain check for the next time.

While it was true I already knew Jason I knew I would be up for boyfriend inspection and since Sookie and I hadn't really talked about what the hell we had going on between us, I figured it was best if I pass on the family dinners until we'd come to a decision. I'd gone home with the inclination to do a little cleaning around my own house since Pam sure as hell left a mess in her wake, and things being disorderly started to bother me after a while. I wasn't a neat freak, per se, but I did like things to be where they belonged. At the very least, trash shouldn't be left strewn about on various flat surfaces. Pam was a terrible house guest.

I hadn't even been apart from Sookie for two hours and I already missed her. I might have thought it was pathetic if it weren't for the fact that it made me happy. I'd never really missed any of my previous girlfriends. I was usually relieved when they made other plans. Mostly because it meant I wasn't going to end up getting dragged along while they shopped, or stuck in some lame theater watching a rom com that I had no interest in.

Thankfully Pam wasn't at my house when I got back. Her bags were still upstairs so I knew she hadn't left town. I wondered if that meant she hadn't bothered to come home the night before. Her bed was still made, suggesting she hadn't. I got a few blissful hours of quiet to clean the house up and do some reading before Pam showed up looking all chipper and bogged down with shopping bags. Whoever said money couldn't buy happiness clearly hadn't studied Pam, and Pam should definitely be studied.

I fell into a new routine after that weekend. I was usually content to spend rather long hours at work. Owning my own business was nice because it meant being my own boss but it also meant I did most of the work. I generally preferred it that way since it tended to mean there were fewer fuck ups for me to fix later on. I kept my staff pretty lean and Chow was my right hand man down at the shop. He knew even more about comic books than I did.

The idea to open a book store that specialized in locating rare volumes had actually been my father's idea. Being that my mother was an English lit professor and my father taught European history, there were books galore around the house. While most of my friends were reading R.L. Stine books back in fifth grade I was already working my way through Dickens and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's collective works. I was advanced for my age, what can I say?

The store did well and was frequented by various college professors and academic types who were working on thesis papers, or just straight up collectors. I'd gotten my hands on a few priceless finds I wouldn't sell unless I absolutely had to. I was in the middle of doing some tracking on a shipment I was expecting one afternoon when Mom randomly popped in. She did that from time to time after she got her nails done at the salon at the other end of the strip mall from where my store was.

"Hey baby," Mom smiled at me, wiggling her fingertips as she walked toward the counter.

"Hi Mom. I didn't know it was nail day. You should have told me so someone else could cover for me." I told her since we usually ended up going to lunch together.

"Not today, sweetheart, I have tons of errands to run for that dinner thing at your father's school." Mom sighed and straightened a little carousel of bookmarks on the counter.

"What dinner thing?"

"You know that achievement award thing his department is throwing," Mom looked at me like I should have known what she was talking about. "Your father didn't tell you?"

"Nope, this is the first I'm hearing about it." I wasn't really all that surprised. Dad didn't really like making a big deal about things.

"I'm going to strangle that man! How is it that he can remember the most random dates in history but he can't remember to tell his son about award dinners?" Mom shook her head in frustration.

"You know how he is, Mom," I closed my laptop and set it off to the side.

"And whether he likes it or not, this is a big deal. It's Friday night at the college. Can you make it?" Mom leaned against the counter.

I had plans with Sookie that night and as soon as I hesitated, Mom gave me what I affectionately referred to as The Face. It was the kind of look only a mother could give, seeing as it was part threat, part guilt, and it worked every damn time she used it.

"Don't you dare even think about saying no," Mom warned me when I didn't speak up quickly enough for her.

"It's not that. I already have plans on Friday but I can change them…assuming I can bring a date along." I told Mom and she immediately perked up.

"A date? Since when do you bring girls around to meet us?" Mom drummed her fingertips against the countertop.

"Since I actually like this one," I admitted to her and I swear, I thought she was going to faint.

Mom looked around and then reached over the counter to feel my forehead. "You alright, son? You are my son, aren't you?"

"Very funny." I deadpanned.

"Well honey it's not like you've introduced me to any of the girls you've been seeing accept for that one time when I didn't call first and-"

"Stop! Can we please not relive that?" I squeezed my eyes closed. I didn't want to think about whatever her name was, or the fact that my mother had caught me having sex with her on my sofa in the middle of the day.

Mom shrugged and said, "Well, at least this new girl seems to be quite lucky, if the noises the last one was making are any indication."

"God, Mom," I rolled my eyes and she chuckled at my disgust.

Thank God my mother didn't teach sexuality or something. I would probably be in therapy three times a week if that was the case. As it was, Mom couldn't stop chuckling at my discomfort. This had to be some sort of karmic payback for all the injuries I'd suffered as a child that had her rushing me to the emergency room. God sure had one hell of a sense of humor.

"So are you going to tell me the new girl's name, or should I just assign her a number?" Mom asked when she finally stopped laughing.

"Her name is Sookie. She's a nurse in a pediatrician's office over in Monroe and she lives in Bon Temps. She's twenty-four and went to Tulane. And if Dad ever gets a tour of her house, he's going to go absolutely apeshit over it." I recited for her.

"Is it antebellum?"

"Not even close but it's been in her family for about five generations, I think, and I'm pretty sure some of the furniture in it is original." I explained and Mom grinned.

"If you father goes over there, he might never leave." That was a true statement right there. "Got a picture of her?"

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and found one that was acceptable to show Mom. It was a simple picture I had taken one afternoon while we were sitting on her porch swing together. Her hair was down and she smiling pretty for the camera. I handed my phone over to Mom, whose eyes widened.

"She's a stunner," Mom smiled at me. "I'd like to meet her, even if you don't bring her along on Friday night. No pressure though, of course."

No pressure, riiiight. That was code for 'she better come for Sunday brunch in the next two weekends or I'll track her down myself.' I don't know who Mom thought she was fooling.

"I'll talk to her about it later. Just how formal is this event?" I had no idea if Sookie had formal wear in her closet or not and I knew enough about women to know that shopping for big events took time. Thanks, Mom.

"Black tie. I bought my dress three weeks ago."

Fuck.

"I'm going to strangle Dad with his own bowtie." I shook my head.

"Oh no, I get first dibs. I told him to call you as soon as the invitation came and he promised me he would." Mom started drumming her fingers again.

"Well, I promise I will call you later and let you know if Sookie will be attending as well, how's that? If she's not up for it, I'll reschedule with her; she'll understand." I knew she would. Sookie took family things seriously and she wouldn't be pissed at me for canceling on her to spend time with my parents.

"That's acceptable. Well then, I'm off to go make sure the alterations are done on my dress. I'll talk to you later, baby," Mom leaned over the counter to accept the kiss on the cheek I offered her and then she was gone.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly before dialing Sookie's number.

o.O.o.O.o

I was grinning like a dope to see Sookie's car parked in my driveway. I'd told her where a spare key was hidden so she could let herself inside. I pulled into the garage and headed into the house, pausing to inhale the delicious smell that hung in the air. Sookie had learned how to make just about every traditional southern food from her grandmother and it all tasted amazing. I'd started running every morning because of it. Southern food was delicious but it wasn't exactly healthy.

I found Sookie in my kitchen with all the burners going on the stove. I dropped my laptop bag on one of the kitchen chairs and then strode over to her to kiss her hello. She was stirring a sauce of some kind and when I saw pasta cooking in the large pot in the back, my smile got even bigger. Mac 'n cheese that didn't require a powder mixture—I was in heaven.

"It smells great in here," I kissed her neck. "And the food smells good, too."

"Smooth," Sookie stopped stirring her sauce long enough to kiss me back, but pulled away before we could get too far into it.

The week before she'd been making fried chicken and we got so wrapped up in our exchange that she ended up burning a pan of thighs. It might have been tragic if we didn't end up ordering pizza instead and spent the wait time for the delivery making out on my couch. Fried chicken would have been good, but making out was a nice consolation prize.

"What are you making?" I asked her while going over to the fridge to get a beer.

"Mac 'n cheese and I have ham baking already," she smiled over her shoulder. "And if you think you can manage to not cut yourself, those green beans in the sink need their ends trimmed."

I narrowed my eyes at her. I was never going to live down the potato peeling incident and I could only imagine what my mother would say about it when Sookie told her, since I was sure she would. In fact, I was sure Mom and Sookie were going to get along great. With Sookie's love of classics, she was going to get along great with both of my parents. Between Dad making history his living and Sookie's house being full of it, they would have plenty to discuss. Hell, they might even forget I was at the table with them.

"I think I've got it, Chef," I smirked at her and reached for the cleaver just to see her roll her eyes at me and she didn't disappoint. I laughed and then grabbed the paring knife instead. "So have you given any thought to Friday?"

"Are you sure you want me to meet your parents?" Sookie asked while stirring her sauce. "I mean, that's kind of a big thing and we haven't really talked about where this thing with us is going so if you're not sure-"

"I'm sure. I wouldn't have asked you if I didn't want you there. And personally, labels aren't really all that important to me. I'm with you, and that's it. I don't want to be with anyone else and to me that's all that matters, whether I call you my girlfriend or not." I told her and she bit her bottom lip nervously.

"So if I start introducing you to people as my boyfriend you're not going to freak out on me for it?" Sookie let go of the whisk she was holding.

"Nope. I think you're stuck with me." I smiled at her and I swear I'd never seen her move more quickly than I did at that moment. Her hands pulled my face down to hers to kiss her.

My arms ended up wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer to me. For maybe the hundredth time since I met her, I thought about how I could probably live on her kisses if I wanted to. Thankfully the oven timer went off to keep us from getting carried away and Sookie pulled back to turn it off.

"Would you please take the ham out of the oven for me?" Sookie whispered against my lips.

"Yes, dear," I kissed her once more and then did as she asked.

Dinner was amazing, as it usually was when Sookie cooked. We cleaned up the kitchen together and went for a walk around the neighborhood since it was a nice night outside. When we got back we put in a movie and snuggled up together on my couch. Usually Sookie didn't spend the night during the week but she had a bag sitting on the stairs, leading me to believe she intended to stay the night.

Almost a month into the relationship and we hadn't had sex yet. That was the longest I'd been with a girl-since high school- without having fucked with her. The crazy thing was that I was okay with waiting. I was following Sookie's lead and while there was a part of me that was loathed to admit it, she definitely called the shots in our relationship.

About forty-five minutes into Planet Terror Sookie started nodding off. I grabbed the remote and turned off the movie. If she fell asleep I wouldn't be far behind her and I didn't really want to sleep on the couch when there was a huge bed upstairs waiting for us. I rubbed her arm and whispered to her.

"Sookie, let's go upstairs."

She grunted and tried to snuggle closer to me. "I'm comfy right here."

Of course she was comfy; she was stretched out. I slid out from under her and then scooped her up off the couch. She didn't even try to fight me like she usually did whenever I'd try to pick her up. Maybe that was one of the perks of being the boyfriend and not just the guy she was seeing. Whatever the reason, I was a happy bastard when she just snuggled against me and let me carry her upstairs.

I set her down on the bed and then went back downstairs to lock up the house and get Sookie's overnight bag. When I got back to the bedroom she was in the bathroom brushing her teeth. "Your bag is on the bed," I told her with a quick kiss to the side of her head.

"Thank you, boyfriend," she called out after me when I left her to her nightly routine.

Sookie emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later with a clean face and teeth. She walked over to the bed and dug her nightgown out of her bag. I was surprised when she didn't return to the bathroom to change. Maybe she figured I was too engrossed in my emails to pay much attention to what she was doing but a half naked girlfriend was infinitely more interesting than tracking information on a shipment that was officially a day late.

She had her back to me and had peeled off her t-shirt. Her arms came up behind her back and unhooked her bra before sliding that off as well. I held my breath as the lace hit the end of my bed. It took every bit of will I had not to grab her around her waist and drag her into bed with me right then. This whole being respectable thing and not pushing for more was really wreaking havoc with my balls. The number of hard-ons I'd willed away was starting to make me a real bitch to be around at work, no matter how many visits I got from Rosy and her sisters. My dick felt as if it had gotten all it could from its relationship with Rosy; it was ready to upgrade.

Unfortunately, Sookie didn't seem to be at that point yet. If I was really honest with myself and ignored my own frustration, I admired her for having the conviction to hold out until it wasn't just about a hormonal rush. If I had done that, the number of women I'd slept with would be much smaller than it was. Not that I really wanted to think about it, but I wondered what Sookie's magic number was. The very idea of her being with someone else made my stomach turn but it would be really fucking hypocritical of me to judge her for not being a virgin when I had lost my own V Card more than a decade before. But then being tall and playing football in high school will get you laid no matter what.

I held back a whimper of disapproval when she pulled her nightgown on. It wasn't even really a nightgown, so much as a giant t-shirt. With that knowledge in mind, I seriously considered slipping one of my old shirts into her bag before morning. I liked the idea of her sleeping in my clothes, if only because it was a way of marking her in her sleep. Weird, I know, but it just struck me as hot.

I wanted to reach out and touch that warm, smooth skin of hers but I kept my hands to myself. She reached under her shirt and unbuttoned her jeans before sliding those off as well. She folded up her clothes and put them back in her bag. When she turned around she stopped short. "What?" She asked, staring at me curiously.

Fuck. What the hell expression did I have on my face? Shock, awe, desire…a combination of them, probably. "Nothing." I shook it off.

"Okay…" she said with uncertainty and set her bag on the floor at the foot of the bed. She climbed up next to me and rested her head on my shoulder while I pointed and clicked around the web.

If anyone else would have done that, I would have found it supremely annoying. I hated having someone standing over my shoulder watching me work; it drove me up the fucking wall. But it seemed Sookie was destined to be allowed to break all kinds of rules with me without me giving one single fuck about it.

"I felt it," she whispered quietly, her fingers trailing up and down my arm.

"Felt what?" I asked while I read.

"You watching me," she tilted her head up to look at me and I was afraid, yes afraid, to look back at her. She didn't sound pissed but maybe she was. "You know, you don't have to be so restrained all the time."

Now that got my attention.

"What do you mean?" I closed my laptop because I had a feeling I knew exactly what she was talking about.

Sookie moved the laptop out of the way and I felt myself tense up a little bit. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to will away another hard-on if that's what she had in mind and I didn't want to start something we couldn't finish, as much as I wanted her... All the fucking time. Sookie climbed onto my lap as soon as the laptop was safely out of the way.

"You've been very patient with me," her hands settled on my neck. "And I appreciate that because I wanted…I've rushed into things before because my brain just went into overload. But you're different and I don't want to make the same mistakes I've made in the past. But then there's a part of me that doesn't want to wait anymore either."

Was it possible Sookie and I had more in common than I would have thought where relationships were concerned? She was ideal girlfriend material. Any guy who couldn't see that deserved repeated junk punches every day for the rest of his miserable life. I already knew about one of her exes on account of him being there when I called the day after our first date. Lord help the asshole if he tried to make another move on Sookie. She was mine.

Mine. There's a possessive pronoun I didn't usually use to describe a woman. Yet, it felt exactly right where Sookie was concerned. There goes another one of those rules, but it wouldn't be right to call her mine if she couldn't call me hers.

"Sookie, I'm okay with waiting. I'm not used to it but you're worth it. Any guy who says any different doesn't deserve you." I picked up one of her hands and kissed her palm.

She smiled at me and said, "So um, I was thinking Friday night…you know, after we get back from that thing with your parents we could…well, we could see where things go. No pressure or anything."

She was proposing a sex date? Seriously, how could anyone turn that down? I was a little stunned but as soon as that passed, I was one happy motherfucker. Three days. I could do three more days, right? Three days was nothing after more than three months. Wow. Three months since the last time I had sex? Jesus. That was a devastating drought and I realized how pathetic that was. Not because I should have been banging a ton of random chicks in that time but because in the larger scope of things, three months wasn't really that long.

"I think we can work something out. We'll just do whatever feels right." I promised her and she nodded, biting her bottom lip nervously. "Hey," I grabbed her face and pulled it closer to mine to catch her eyes. "It's because I care about you that I haven't pushed. When you're ready, it'll happen."

For a second I thought she was going to cry but instead she leaned further into me and hugged me. Her head rested on my shoulder and I wrapped my arms around her. I rubbed her back until she got past whatever dark cloud was hanging over her head. I wasn't used to doing the comforting thing but it seemed I wasn't too bad at it.

"Thank you," Sookie whispered as she sat up.

"Anytime," I tucked some of her hair behind her ear. "Bedtime?"

She nodded and climbed off of me. She stretched out on her side and I leaned over to turn off the light before spooning up behind her. Our fingers laced together at her hip and with a kiss to her shoulder, I fell asleep.

So what'd y'all think of Mama Northman? I kinda love her. She's got a great sense of humor, believe me. We'll see more of her, and meet Papa Northman, next chapter. And a sex date has been set, sort of... We'll be learning more about Sookie's relationship history because it's bigger than just Bill. Hmm...anything else? *reserves comment on epic True Blood anger* If you want to talk about last night's episode of True Blood, please send me a PM instead of leaving a review so we don't spoil the folks who haven't seen it yet. Deal? Sweet! Also, I had so much fun doing my review responses yesterday that I'll do teasers again. Thanks for reading!