I slept until early afternoon. I awoke feeling well rested but somehow not at all refreshed. Lying in bed, I stared out the window into another day that promised sunshine, and I tried to wrap my head around the events of the previous evening.

Sophie-Anne Leclerq was buried under my apple tree.

My thousand-year-old vampire ex had kissed me.

Why? Was it to prove a point? To shut me up?

I closed my eyes and groaned. I couldn't think about this, because once I started down that path, I knew it would be very hard to stop. Thinking about Eric and his motivations could consume a woman. He would either tell me or he wouldn't. In the meantime, I would choose to ignore whatever… that was last night. Sophie-Anne was the more pressing concern.

I set the coffee to brew and went through the clothes I'd packed to find something suitable for the day. I really had packed in a rush. Everything was chosen thoughtlessly, most of it office attire. I found a dress in my closet where I kept a small selection to wear to church when staying in Bon Temps. Today's was an ocean blue sundress with white embroidery at the waist. While it was in fact Sunday, church was long finished, but I didn't fancy wearing sweats or a black pencil skirt. Besides, the way I'd been acting of late, I might actually burn to a crisp if I attempted to step inside a church.

I ate breakfast, not really tasting it and resolved to call Mr. Cataliades. He answered on the first ring.

"Has your research been…fruitful?" he asked after we got past the initial pleasantries.

"It looks like things will soon be more complicated for the vampires of Louisiana. For Queen Thalia, in particular."

"I see," he said in a way I found remarkably neutral, given the topic we were dancing around.

"I'm out of my depth," I confessed. "Please help me."

"My dear, I wish nothing more than to help. But you know I am Queen Thalia's counsel," he said. Of course, conflict of interest. Duh. No way he could offer me actual advice. "I will speak with Horatio Lucretius and see if he will be willing to meet with you for an informal chat. If not, we will find someone suitable outside of the firm to offer you counsel," he said.

Lucretius, the firm's other demon lawyer, was straight up terrifying, but I would accept help where I could. I could see no disadvantage in having a scary demon on my side.

I wrote a return letter to my Niall and left it on the rose bush, mostly to fritter away the time. I didn't inform him of the messier details of my life. What could he do? He was in Faery. He'd done all he could for me before cutting off contact with this world. Better not to worry him. The letter was gone the next time I checked.

A delivery came, a large cooler filled with human blood. I signed for it and watched as the poor driver tried to back up his truck and get around Eric's corvette, which took up most of the turning circle from where he'd left it parked the night before. The delivery guy gave up and did a ten-point turn, Austen Powers style, and finally left. I put the blood away and surveyed the rest of the contents in my fridge. There wasn't a lot to eat. But nothing really sparked my appetite for dinner either. I studied a little, watched some TV, paced the house.

At seven o'clock, I sat out on the porch steps watching as the light changed with sunset. The crickets began chirping and the air slowly cooled. Eric came striding across the cemetery from the direction of Bill's house. My stomach lurched. He maintained an infuriatingly human pace. I stood up and wrapped an arm around the vertical porch beam for support.

"You stayed at Bill's?" I asked.

"He needs a better housekeeper," Eric confirmed with a grimace. "Why he refuses to renovate that shit hole is beyond me."

"How did you get in?"

He withdrew a key from the pocket of his jeans. "I had a spare from when Karin nested with him."

Oh right, that time he commanded his vampire child to guard my home for a year while he left the state to marry a new wife.

"Was the blood delivered today?" he asked.

"It's in the fridge."

We lapsed into silence. Eric didn't make his way up the porch steps. In the distance, I could hear the puttering of a car at the far end of Hummingbird Road.

"Eric," I said and it was like my tongue had become stuck in my mouth. The words that wanted to follow just wouldn't come.

"Sookie." His hand came to rest on the porch railing. I wondered what he was thinking. His expression revealed nothing. He still had on the same clothes as the night before. His damned corvette still blocked my driveway.

Time to put on your big girl panties, Stackhouse.

"Could you see yourself loving me again?" I asked.

The shadow of a sad smile came and went across his features; there one moment gone the next. "You speak as though I ever possessed the ability to stop."

My trembling hand fluttered to my throat.

"I need to attend to Sophie-Anne," he said. "Will you leave half the blood bags at the back door?"

I nodded, not trusting my voice. He began to walk away but then halted mid-step. Not looking back at me, he said, "I think you'll agree that love was never the problem with us."

He zipped out of sight. I exhaled slowly, my heart pounding.

My thoughts battered back and forth inside my head like a million blowflies trapped and trying to escape, but I ignored it all and did as he requested. After I took the blood to the back step, I stood watching from the doorway as he began digging, before busying myself in the kitchen. It didn't take long for him to return.

"Shower?" he asked. He held a black duffel bag.

"Go for it. You remember where the clean towels are."

He arched a brow at my comment and headed up to the main bathroom. I sat myself on the sofa in the living room and waited for him to come back down. I fluffed the cushions next to me. Smoothed an invisible crease on my skirt. I thought I might scream.

"The furniture's changed in here," he said. He was in fresh clothes. Dark jeans, black tee. His hair was still damp but combed through. He wandered the living room, looking it over.

"Uh-huh. After I signed the house over to Jason, I got rid of a lot of things. When I got it back, I replaced what needed to be replaced. There's still a few more things I need to get." A new bookcase, for one. The dining table needed a new rug underneath it too. I was hoping to find all antique or vintage replacements. Thankfully, most of the mementos and knick-knacks remained.

"I'm glad you got the house back. It would be strange for it to belong to anyone but you."

"I couldn't have done it without your help. Thank you."

He smiled faintly. "Thalia held her sword to Felipe's neck as I made him write the check for the money he owed you."

"Wow."

"Yes, he wasn't happy about signing it. Then he was headless." He punctuated this with a lighthearted shrug.

"Thalia can be decisive when she wants to be," I said as diplomatically as I could. I tried to push away that image as it formed in my mind. I was glad not to have not been present for that moment. But I was more glad that Felipe was definitely dead.

"So… a cease and desist?" he said. I let out a little huff of surprise at the sudden shift in topic.

"Yes, a cease and desist."

"Do you think it'll work?"

"I know it will work," I said firmly.

Eric raised his brows and gestured with his hand for me to continue.

"Claire Duvall may be in hiding or partying in Ibiza for all we know… You could waste time trying to track her down, and let her continue to disrupt your life in the meantime, but there's more than one way to skin a cat. We know with reasonable surety that she's living off her father's dime, and it's his money that's funding these attempted 'hits'."

"You're trying to cut her off at the source."

"Exactly. Let Daddy find out what his darling daughter is doing. With your okay, we send that cease and desist to his office and, if you're comfortable, we send along her death threat voicemail too."

"Send it to her father?"

"Address is to her care of her father since she has no fixed address, if he sees the law firm's name on the envelope he won't help but open it."

"Right."

"Her father has his own issues to deal with, the last thing he needs is bad press or his daughter causing him legal troubles. He threatens to cut her off, or hell, maybe he actually does cut her off. Either way she stops hassling you."

"That's clever."

"It's what you pay the law firm good money for," I said. I crossed my arms, confident we'd covered as much as was required on that. I took a deep breath. "Now I think I'd like to have our talk."

He smirked and picked up a photo frame from the mantle. It was my prom photo. Gran and I were posing out on the steps of the front porch. JB, my date for the night, had taken the picture.

"I know I've changed, Sookie, but how can I be sure that you have too?"

"Changed?" I made a sound to indicate my surprise.

"We either make an effort to change, or we repeat history. And I have no interest in doing that. I'm not in the habit of setting out to fail."

I stood then. "I'm not going to change myself—mold myself into someone I'm not. And I'm definitely not doing it for any man." I'd done that before and, nuh-uh, never again.

"Are you purposefully misunderstanding me?"

"No. But I don't know what you're asking of me either, and I don't like the implication. I'm not going to change myself for you like, like, some kind of vampire Stepford wife."

"I'm not asking for some fake version of yourself," he said.

"Then what do you want? Why kiss me? Or is it just some game to you? Is it a fun pastime to toy with me?"

"Nothing about you is a game, Sookie Stackhouse." As he said it, his eyes flashed.

"Then explain to me, exactly in what way would you have me change?" Anger rushed through me so complete, I could taste it. This was not how I pictured this conversation going.

"I want a future that's worth the effort." He set the frame down hard on the mantle with a thud. "I won't—can't—do this again, if you don't even attempt to see my view."

"Do what again? We're not doing anything… you've been holding me at arm's length for months!"

He ignored me and continued, "You act and carry yourself as if you're a casualty, the injured party, vulnerable to the whims of others—the whims of the supernatural community."

"What? What are you even talking about? What's that got to do with you and me?" My voice rose to match his own.

"Just look at how the landscape of vampire politics has shifted in the last six months," he pressed on. "It's you—you that yields all the power. You who determines the fate of everything. Yet you behave as if it's the opposite, in complete denial!"

"Oh, come off it. That is an extremely exaggerated view of very complex situations."

"It's not just with the state of politics—you wield that power, with me."

I shook my head in disbelief. That was not the case and I told him as much. He laughed, a bitter sound, and shook his head emphatically. "The fact you refuse to see it furthers my case. So, forgive me for trying to exert control in a situation where I have none," he said.

"That's total BS. You've always called the shots."

"Never when it involved you and matters of the heart."

I threw up my hands in exasperation. "Like when you married and then divorced me with no warning? Was that me determining fate? Or was it when you treated our relationship like a game of chess to suit your end goals? And then, once you deemed there to be no hope, cast me aside with not even the courtesy of a warning."

He closed his eyes, visibly holding back a knee-jerk retort, and offered a single nod. "Fine." His blue eyes fixed on mine again. "Perhaps you could liken it to someone holding onto a literal wish and never deigning to tell their spouse."

"Right, because you were so transparent with me all the time."

"We both made mistakes."

"You were planning on turning me!" The words tore from me so loudly my voice broke. "Nothing I did holds a candle to that!"

"And I didn't turn you, did I?" he bellowed in return. His fist came down and the frame toppled. "I had to watch you bleed out and die instead! Do you have any idea what kind of toll that had? Any?"

I clasped onto my stomach reflexively, where the sword had impaled me. Damn him for being right. He could've turned me—I bet he wanted to, but he hadn't.

"People change, Sookie," he said. "Wisdom comes with experience. Perspective shifts alongside that experience. I'm not asking you to change. I'm asking if you have changed enough in the intervening years."

"Enough? Enough for what?"

"Are you going to run when it gets too hard? Will you refuse to take my every action or word in good faith?"

I closed my eyes, they burned with unshed tears. Lord, help me. I didn't want to be covering this ground right now. Or maybe even ever. Why did our history have to be so complicated? We had an undead dead queen to think about.

"I don't know," I said and shook my head roughly.

I thought of that drunken night I'd spent in his apartment. How I'd resolved myself to change. Change how? Not the essence of who I was. Then what, and how? I wiped my cheek where tears had spilled. When it came down to it, was I all talk?

"So if that's the case," he asked, his tone now subdued, "then I ask you, what is it that you want?"

"I want you!" My eyes snapped open, and my anger returned blazing. "That's the point. I want all of you! I want you—completely, and always, and it makes me sick, and it drives me crazy. I thought you had gone, and I could get on with my life. For a while, hell, I even did. But now you're back, and it's like I'm back at square one! I can't get you out of my head, Eric, and I can't love you like this and not have you. It's killing me."

We stared at one other, me panting and Eric with an expression of a wild animal caged.

"Gods, woman," he growled, then crossed the room in two broad steps and swept me up into his arms.

I threw my arms around him, and he kissed me. God help me, he kissed me with the desperation of a drowning man clinging to a scrap of driftwood at sea, like a lost wanderer slaking his thirst on a desert oasis. He gripped me to him, fingers raking through my hair, his lips rough and yearning against mine. It went on and on until I could hardly catch my breath. My hands roamed along his body greedily, pulling roughly at his shirt so I could feel his exposed skin.

"Did you sleep enough today?" he asked, his voice a rasp in my ear. I was pressed against a wall, which wall I couldn't tell you, my legs wrapped around his waist. We could've been in the Land of Oz for all I knew and I wouldn't have noticed.

"Yes," I panted. His blunt teeth tugged on my earlobe, sending wicked sensations through me.

"Good. You won't be getting any tonight."

He scooped me up into his arms, and I let out an astonished laugh. He carried me to my bedroom and deposited me on the bed. I landed with a bounce and then rolled to reach over and flick the lamp on.

"You have no idea," he said, reaching for his belt. "How much I've hungered for you."

"Are you kidding me? You've had my blood, you know how I feel."

He smirked. I slid off the bed and took the hem of his t-shirt in my hands. I tugged it up and up and off him. I wanted to undress him. It had been too long; I wanted to remember every part of him that I'd so desperately missed.

I slipped my arms through the thin straps of my dress and wriggled out of it. He murmured appreciatively. My bra and underpants weren't part of a matching set, but they were lacy, at least, and they accentuated the right bits. I could afford nicer underthings now I was a career woman. I sent my hands on an exploratory journey of his body, over his pecs, arms, all surfaces I could reach, I followed close behind with my mouth. His skin felt cool and soft, full of strength and vitality. His smile took on a lazy quality, eyes closing.

I unbuttoned his jeans, slid the zipper slowly down, watching the minute changes to his facial expression. It was unfair how good looking he was. The offending pants slid free of his hips and he was completely nude underneath. Of course. He pulled me to him then, his kisses taking on a more impatient quality. His fangs scraped against my jaw, down the column of my neck, though not hard enough to draw blood.

"My Sookie… my lover," he repeated between kisses, his hands and mouth stroking me every-which-where. He lowered me backwards onto the bed, his hard length pressing against my stomach. "Ah, I've missed you."

He reached behind my back and unclasped my bra. Judging by his expression, it was Christmas morning and my breasts were first the present he'd unwrapped. "And how I've missed these," he said, then lavished them with attention too.

I tugged at my underpants and pulled them down impatiently. I was a thirsty woman. It had been some time since I'd been with a man in this way. And in the entirety of the world there was no man better to slake my thirst upon. He moved back to give me space to kick my panties off. I scooted back from him then, keeping my knees together, and sat up a little against the headboard. His gaze, dark with lust, followed my movements, filling me with an anticipatory fire. No one else made me feel like this. I stroked my breasts, circled a nipple with a fingertip. I moved my hand lower, tracing a path down my belly and to the top of my bent knees.

"Sookie…" His tongue appeared; he licked his bottom lip, swiped over his fangs.

"Yes, baby?"

I used my hand to slowly part my knees and reveal myself to him. His pupils dilated, then he uttered a throaty curse and was on me in an instant. Cool body against mine, his fingers exploring, moving lower until they stroked my inner thigh. I caught his mouth in a kiss and sighed in pleasure as his finger traced against me. He parted me, probed gently, and slid his finger deep inside. I moaned and arched into him. He quickly brought me close to what he assured with insistent whispers would be the first of many orgasms tonight.

I took him in my own hand, stroking him up and down—reacquainting myself with an old friend. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed this part of him in particular. I ached for him, a hollowness that only he could fill. Eric responded enthusiastically to my movements, groaning out my name, urging me on. I shifted my hips to align myself with him. I gripped him firmly now, angling him to slide up and down along me.

He propped himself up with his hands above me watching as I finally positioned him. My body tingled, flush with anticipation. I lifted my hips just so, the tip of him breaching me, and we moaned in unison. Eric met me the rest of the way, easing himself in with a single deliciously slow stroke. This too, I had forgotten. The feel of him, filling me so completely. I ran my hand across his chest and neck, feeling the restraint in his corded muscles. I needed him, all of him, in me, on me, all over. He began to thrust steadily, watching for my reaction.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Oh, honey," I said, gently grazing my nails along his back. "Like riding a bike."

He burst out in laughter, and that was it—my leg was up and over his shoulder, and we were off to the races. We made our way through all our favorite positions—a greatest hits tour. Eric remembered just exactly how to bring me to the brink before easing off again and again, while I enjoyed watching his reaction to things that I knew got a rise out of him. Dragging my teeth along his nipples, twisting my hips in that particular way that would elicit a hiss or groan.

He rolled me at last onto my back, and I wrapped my legs around him. We locked eyes, his expression both tender and intense. He supported my hips, thrusting deeply until I tumbled up and over the summit of an enormous climax, one that left me shuddering, gasping, practically sobbing.

It didn't end there.

He drove into me, over and over, until I was boneless, mindless, eyes rolling and at last he let out a yell, a stream of foreign words, and climaxed with several hard, jerking thrusts. He collapsed on top of me, and I wrapped my arms around him. I felt like a koala, my whole body wrapped around my giant tree trunk of a vampire. We lay like that for some time. Eric traced kisses along my jaw, stroked the hair from my forehead.

"Mmm…my Sookie."

"I'm sorry," I murmured dreamily. "Sookie can't make it to the phone right now. You'll need to leave a message."

Eric's chuckle reverberated through my chest.

"Do I need to wait for a tone or a moan?" He punctuated his quip with a cheeky pinch at my hip. I giggled. I hardly recognized my voice. I was happy to lie like this forever… and we did lie there for a good long while. When clear thoughts did come back into focus, I realized something.

"You didn't bite me." I lifted my head off the pillow.

He lifted his head off my shoulder. "I have no intention of tiring you out at the beginning of our night." His fangs were down. I sent out a finger and stroked one gently.

"Not even a little amuse-bouche?" I asked lightly.

His nostrils flared, and I felt him throb down where he rested between my legs. I grinned. I was onto something.

I pressed my finger against his fang and felt the skin give under its point. His mouth closed around my finger, tongue snaking over the small wound. He made a low sound of pleasure that sent tingles of longing through me again.

He was ready for me again—heck, I felt ready again too. I moved my pelvis against him but he rolled off me.

"Hey," I protested.

"You need food. I bet you hardly ate today," he said. He walked to my dresser and pulled the drawer open. I only had a few bits and pieces in there. He picked up my old Fangtasia t-shirt. "Perfect," he said and tossed it over to me.

I grumbled and pulled the t-shirt on. Eric remained naked, and I looked at him pointedly. "You're not joining me in the kitchen naked as a jay-bird."

"If you insist." He pulled my old ratty cotton robe off the back of the bedroom door and slipped into it. "I can't believe you still have this old thing," he said, turning to admire himself in the mirror. It was comically small on him, a small hole under the arm was stretched wide thanks to his muscular upper arm.

"You're incorrigible," I muttered under my breath.

"What was that?" He touched his ear, as if he didn't quite catch my words. "I'm incredible?"

I rolled my eyes and swatted him on the butt as I left my room. I made a sandwich with turkey and sliced tomato and ate it standing at the kitchen counter. Eric sat at the kitchen table watching me thoughtfully.

"Who'd have thought we'd be back here doing this again?" I said. I smiled and took a bite.

"Me."

I scoffed. "You did not. Not back when things… went to hell."

He shrugged at this. "You're probably right."

"I know I am."

"I had every intention not to return to Louisiana."

"What was it like in Oklahoma?"

He stretched his legs out, crossed his ankles, flexed his toes. "Boring, initially. More interesting towards the end of my stay. I helped Sigrid and Christof prepare the state for takeover."

"How do you mean?"

"You saw how Freyda managed her finances." His brow lifted, and I nodded. "If Sigrid and Christof wanted a chance at a successful rule, they needed to plan for it fiscally, strategically. I had some experience and insights to offer them."

Didn't he just. Eric was a successful businessman, if nothing else.

"That was nice of you."

"Better than sitting and looking pretty. Isn't that what you accused me of doing there?"

I laughed. "Yeah, I think I did say that." Enough time has passed from those awful conversations we'd shared in Oklahoma. It felt a little surreal to be at a point where we could joke about it. "Were you happy with Freyda… I know clearly by the end you weren't. But what about the beginning? You didn't always plan for her to lose the throne, did you?"

His gaze narrowed. "Is this one of your trick questions?"

"No trick," I said and poured myself a glass of water from the faucet. We'd never really talked about her since he'd come to New Orleans and we'd resumed our friendship.

"Do you think I was happy?" he asked.

I thought of the times I'd seen them together then. I'd seen them talk and joke, but by the end of my trip, I had a sense it wasn't as genuine as it had seemed to me initially.

"Not necessarily," I said. "But I do think you'd try to make the best of it." At least in the beginning. He went to great lengths to sever ties with his life in Louisiana. It seemed strange to have done so if it were all a ruse or a temporary measure.

"I didn't want to be there, Sookie. Not with her. I tried to make the best of a bad hand. Treat it as a new chapter." He gestured idly with his hand. "It was a resounding failure. She was very young, though."

"She was five times my age!"

"Young for a vampire. It's different."

I shrugged. I'd have to take his word on it.

"Do you still have that god-awful wedding portrait?" I asked. It had been hung above the fireplace in the palace drawing room in Oklahoma.

He smiled wickedly. "I could probably rustle it up for you, if I tried."

"I have a craft knife somewhere around here, I could cut her face out of it for you, if you like?"

He found this most amusing.

"And what of Sam?" he asked. There was genuine curiosity in his tone, a sort of carefulness too. I scrunched up my nose.

"He and I… it was fine to begin with. I thought for sure there was something worth pursuing there. And, well, let's just say I wasn't prepared to deal with some of the ickier parts of dating a shifter."

"What did he do? Come home on a full moon with carrion stuck in his teeth?"

"No!" I said with a snort and noticed Eric was patiently waiting for more details. "Sam would, uh, cavort with other women when he would go on runs. Not in human form, obviously, but that made no difference to me."

"He's a fool," he said fiercely.

"You're telling me."

I finished my water and washed the few dishes I'd created. My lady parts felt deliciously achey, but on the whole I felt good. Very good. I'd be sore tomorrow, even sorer if Eric's prediction about our evening was correct. I was strangely looking forward to feeling the aftereffects tomorrow. Nothing wrong with feeling like a woman who'd been thoroughly plucked.

"What's wrong?" Eric asked, noting my wince.

"Nothing. I'm just a bit sore." I smiled reassuringly. "It's been a while since I've been so thoroughly… you know."

Satisfaction flashed in his eyes. When I blinked next, he was in front of me and lifting me up on the kitchen counter. "Stay," he ordered. He pulled the kitchen chair over and sat it in front of me. His head was exactly level with the counter.

"What are you doing?"

He slid the hem of my Fangtasia t-shirt up my thighs and parted my legs.

"Eric," I chided, with utterly no intention of stopping wherever this promised to go.

"Ah, lover," he said admiringly and his fangs came down. He stroked me softly between my legs, just the once, from top to bottom. "Your pussy is extremely beautiful, do you know?"

"Oh yes," I said with a breathy laugh, "I've got it listed under personal attributes in my resume."

He threw his head back and laughed so heartily that I felt myself warm from head to toe. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen him so without care and joyful.

"Let me help you," he said and daubed the tip of his finger with his saliva. He stroked me again, spreading it like a healing salve, which I suppose, it essentially was. Then he repeated the process again, this time sliding his finger inside me. I gripped the edge of the counter, watching him administer to my sex. It was honestly one of the most erotic sights I'd ever borne witness to.

"Don't stop," I said on an exhale.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Very."

"…Or I could tend to you directly?"

He licked his lips and I could only nod, rendered mute. He leaned forward and tasted me with an unhurried swipe of his tongue.

"Oh, honey..." I moaned.

He laved me with his tongue, being careful to tend to every nook and cranny, until I was begging for him to speed up, yes, just there, now add a finger, please, just like that, don't stop, don't stop… I closed my eyes and just as I was a goner, he sank his fangs into my thigh. I cried out, my orgasm hitting and cresting to such a peak that stars burst to life behind my closed lids.

He only took a few draws of blood before retracting his fangs. He lapped at the wound, his fingers still stroking me in a leisurely motion, drawing shudders of pleasure.

"Would you like me to heal the puncture marks with a little blood?"

"Oh God, no." My body trembled, voice shook. "In fact, I might need to get them tattooed to commemorate."

He grinned and I pushed off the bench, straddling him in the chair. I kissed him deeply, circling my arms around his neck.

"What you need to do is to take off that robe," I said. "It's appalling."

It was comically small on him and the robe itself was frayed.

"Sorry, didn't catch that, did you say appealing?"