Enjoy...

NSFW

This chapter is graciously betaed by Gonsalsy.

Disclaimer: Hi, Ms H. Is Eric in? Can he come out and play?

Previously:

I was slowly regaining control over my limbs, so I stretched my arm toward him. I furrowed my brows when my hand landed on the stiff fabric of his jeans.

"Why are your pants still on?" my brain mouth filter hadn't clicked back into place yet.

Eric let out a peal of laughter.

"That, my lover," he said, "is an excellent question."

He sprang up and hopped off the bed in one fluid move. He looked at me over his shoulder to make sure I was watching him and then he did some quick work on the fastening of his jeans and let them fall down completely.

I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped along with them. To make things even harder (no pun intended) instead of kicking off his pants he bent to take them off, giving me an excellent view of a definitely too tempting part of his anatomy. Bastard was doing this on purpose.

If I had considered Eric a good-looking guy before, I had known only a half of it until that moment.

And then Eric turned around facing me and I felt my eyes widen. I gulped. I was unable to hide some nervousness. He was magnificent, but he presented a… challenge of sorts.

Eric must have guessed what I was thinking, because he smirked and his eyes sparkled. He looked annoyingly pleased with himself.

"Eric," I spoke meaning to remind him that I should be handled with care, but he interrupted me before I could finish the sentence, by crawling back into bed and kissing me.

It was a much better alternative than some boastful comment I had half-expected.

"Don't worry," he said stroking my cheek. It was a little embarrassing that he could read me so easily. "We have it very well-practiced."

I snorted. Maybe if I had remembered it, it would have helped.

"Yeeaaah, but…" I started.

"Shhh…" Eric cut me off again putting a finger against my mouth.

He looked me in the eye.

"I promise," he said.

He didn't elaborate, but I got his meaning. After a beat I nodded slowly and wrapped my arms around his neck. For some reason that I couldn't quite name I trusted Eric. I relaxed and focused on kissing him. I happily used this opportunity to make up for the time my hands had been still. I moved my hands curiously along his body, learning its curves, while he returned the favour – though, of course, he knew the intimate topography of my body much better than I did his and he was putting that knowledge to good use.

It wasn't long before my injuries, previously forgotten in the sensory overload, made themselves known again, and Eric flipped us without thinking too much, so that I landed on top. He surprised me a little with that, but it wasn't a bad surprise. He also used the occasion to finally get rid of my bra, which had become slightly disheveled by that point.

This new position required more moving on my part, but at the same time, it took most of the pressure off my body with Eric's weight no longer being an issue. It also put me in control, which I realised with a start.

It was exciting and a little intimidating – I knew that whatever happened next would be completely at my doing which made it impossible not to take full responsibility for.

I sat up and took a moment to just look at Eric. The lights in the bedroom were off, but there was enough light from the street lamp coming through the window for me to see him clearly. He was lying under me calm and patient, stroking my thighs in a rhythmic motion.

"You're beautiful," I blurted before I could bite my tongue.

I felt my face heating up when I blushed furiously. He was beautiful but I hadn't meant to say that out loud.

"Oh, I know," Eric chuckled. "You've already told me that once."

I smacked his arm lightly, reddening even more than before and squeezed my eyelids shut. He was in an excellent mood – not that it surprised me considering what we were doing at the moment.

But when I opened my eyes, I saw that instead of wearing an arrogant smirk he was looking at me with that relaxed smile I'd only come to know recently and which looked so surprisingly good on him.

"My lover," he said again.

While I looked at him, waiting there for my move, a thought crossed my mind, one that surprised even me – at least for a short while, Eric was completely mine. It was a strangely appealing idea.

I decided not to think beyond that night.

Here, now, I wanted to have him.

I leaned down and kissed him. He shifted his hips reminding me that he was ready for more – not that it was something I could exactly miss, especially since I was straddling him. I responded with rocking my own hips and for a while, as we continued to explore with our hands, it was enough. Finally, when I got to the point where I could almost hear my own pulse drumming in my ears, I straightened slowly and reached for him with my hand. Eric hissed and shifted restlessly when I touched the sensitive skin and I saw him clenching his jaw. I watched his face fascinated when I closed my hand around his flesh. His expression reflected every nuance of my touch. He looked hotly at me. His lips parted slightly – a faint gleam betrayed the presence of peaking fangs hidden behind them – and his eyebrows drew together in reaction to the intimate caress.

"Sookie," he said.

I took a deep breath. It was time. Despite wanting him so much my insides twisted in lust, I couldn't quite let go of the nerves. It was hard not to worry that there would be some pain – that is, until I actually found the courage to proceed. Though it was clear from the start that this experience exceeded anything I had known before, the moment I let myself go, I suddenly knew that Eric was right – muscle memory works differently than brain memory. Even if I didn't remember, my body did, and it had already learned how to do this best.

I sunk lower breathing heavily. I couldn't hold back a moan. Eric's hands were stroking my hips. I felt everything inside me stretching when he filled me to the brim, reaching places that – I'm sure – no one but him had ever touched before. I threw my head back. I knew that a little more and I would near the limit of being uncomfortable, but I never crossed it.

I had to take a deep breath.

I looked back at Eric, a little dazed.

"My Sookie," he said and this time the infuriating pronoun sounded unexpectedly tender.

And from then on, it only got better.

I found the right rhythm surprisingly easy. It was as if I had been making love to Eric every night. I didn't have to try hard for everything to be exactly as it should be. Judging from his reaction, Eric shared my opinion on the matter. Any stress I might have felt before disappeared. There was no nervousness. Being with Eric felt natural.

Soon I found myself quietly repeating Eric's name. Everything was gradually getting more urgent and intense, and when I winced in reaction to my stronger movements , Eric sat up and pulled me closer against him. I kissed him pleased with the added contact. I braced myself against his shoulders - so close – like that – so –

"…Eric."

I let myself float on the wave of pleasure for the second time, only this time it seemed somehow fuller, maybe because Eric was joining me for the ride.

I felt him still moving, but my head lolled and I had to rest it against him, no longer able to control my muscles properly. One of Eric's hands went to the back of my head to keep it in place, his forehead touching mine, and when his fingers curled around my skull I had this fleeting thought of just how small my body really was compared to his. His hips bucked and, as I felt him pulse deep inside me, a primal sense of satisfaction filled me at the knowledge that I could do to him what he had done to me. At that point the only thing I was capable of was wrapping my arms around him and holding on.

Eric laid back on the bed with me still in his arms.

I closed my eyes. I lay there with my head resting against Eric's shoulder for a small eternity.

When I returned to the world I felt Eric's hands stroking my back and it seemed that he had been doing that for some time already. I felt like all my bones melted.

"Eric?" I whispered.

I finally figured out what to tell him.

"Mmmm?"

"This was the best Right Now I remember."

He kissed the top of my head.

I could have lain like that much longer if I hadn't started coughing.

Great. Now my own weight was bothering me.

I reluctantly rolled off Eric onto the bed and settled on my back. Still blissed out, I watched Eric get up and (without bothering with clothes) walk out of the room. I knit my brows. Where was he going?

He came back after a moment. Ah, good vampire. He repeated the wet towel trick from before. It was a thoughtful gesture. I had to give Eric credit where it was due – he really was trying.

After he finished ablutions he got back into bed and I smiled to myself at the thought that he came back for a cuddle. I sighed with contentment when he slipped under the covers and embraced me. We lay in silence for a long time. It was serene. I'd forgotten how peaceful it was to snuggle with your lover, and I was again struck with the feeling that it was something I had done before.

I didn't want to ruin the mood, but eventually I gathered the courage to ask the question I had wanted to know the answer to for a long while and it seemed that the right moment had finally come.

"Are you going to tell me now?"

"Tell you what, Sookie?"

I couldn't see his face, with his head resting on the pillow somewhere behind my own, snuggled against my hair.

"What you didn't tell me before about the time when you stayed with me."

I was sure there was something more, something I was missing, and Eric didn't mention it. Eric had been different than I had expected tonight and I suspected it had something to do with whatever it was I didn't know about.

He didn't answer immediately. For a few seconds he lay running his fingers up and down my arm lightly before he slowly started talking:

"After Hallow cast her spell, I didn't remember anything. It was a cold night. I was running through the woods down a dark road and I didn't even have the slightest recollection of how I got there, where I came from, or why and where I was running to. There was nothing in my mind until that moment. I was empty before you found me."

I listened to him without interrupting as he finally told me the story of those few days in more detail. The warmth of the bedding and semi-darkness made me feel a bit like a child listening to a whispered bed-time story, only my fairytale was not at all appropriate for children.

I noticed that as he neared the part of the story where our relationship started shifting, Eric got more willing to sharing the details and it was the kind of details that made my ears burn. It seemed he thought it still wasn't enough to do it justice, though, because at some point he started enacting some of the things he was telling me claimed it was to give me a better understanding of the situation and walk me through it step by step. Soon there weren't many words left in his story, not that it really mattered, since by then I probably wouldn't have been able to hear them considering what he was doing to me.

"That's not even all that happened that night," Eric said while I was recovering.

I laughed breathlessly.

"I think you're going to have to tell me the rest of this story some other time," I said without thinking it through. "I'm afraid I'm too exhausted to continue."

The moment I closed my mouth a nasty feeling crawled over me. I was talking like I knew there would be another time, but really, I had no idea. I didn't know where I stood with Eric, since we never talked about what would happen next and that thought seriously soured my mood. The fact that he cared for me didn't necessarily mean that he wanted the same things.

Of course I could just ask Eric, but I was too chicken shit for that. If I wasn't sure whether there would be any 'second part of the story' for me, I didn't want to spoil this one night.

"Sookie?" came Eric's whispered question right from behind my ear. He never broke contact. "Is something wrong?"

I forced myself to stifle the budding sadness my doubt had awoke.

I was getting ahead of myself. Eric was right there, holding me, and he certainly didn't need me to freak out on him. I had no intention of worrying about the loss that hadn't even come to pass yet. I pushed the thought away, at least for the night. I didn't want to dwell on that.

I snuggled deeper into Eric, trying to fall back into the blissful moment and take as much pleasure as I could while it lasted.

"I'm just tired," I said stroking the closest path of his skin.

He let it go, perhaps knowing that questioning me would do him no good, or maybe sensing that I had relaxed once again.

Not that what I told him was a lie – my eyes were drooping – but it wasn't the answer to his question either.

"Sleep," he said simply. "You need rest."

He didn't make any move that would suggest that he meant to leave, so without any further discussion I closed my eyes and obediently drifted into sleep in his arms. For the first time in weeks, I didn't dream of anything.

Well, well, well... Took them long enough, didn't it?

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Next chapter:...is the chapter where this story comes to conclusion.