Chapter 14

14- teardrop an evenin’ keeps the vampires confused

Unused to the late night hours, Gran cried off to sleep a few minutes after Eric left.  She popped the three of us on the cheek before retiring, and Pam, taking cues from her maker, left Gran’s lipstick outline right where it was.  After all the ‘good nights,’ Pam, Hadley and I ended up in my bedroom going over the outfits I’d gotten from Tara’s Togs- was it really only just yesterday?

“You and Eric seem to be progressing nicely,” Pam said coyly.

I watched in horror as Pam lifted a pair of skimpy black panties out of one of the bags.

“And what’s this?” she purred perversely, spinning the bit of lace around her index finger.

“Nothing,” I denied rather desperately.

“Mmm hmm,” she murmured, still spinning the panties round.  I made a grab for them, but to my greater horror she shot them across the room like a naughty rubber band.

“Pam!” I exclaimed, and Hadley burst into manic giggles.

I ignored my hee-hawing cousin and snatched the bag from her girlfriend with nigh on vamp speed.  Pam’s left eyebrow shot up and her lips tilted in a knowing smirk.

“Somebody’s been matching nips with the sheriff, I see.”

“I have really good vitamins,” I stubbornly denied on stuffing the bag into my closet.

“She does look different,” Hadley added thoughtfully.  “Though if you didn’t know better you might suspect it was just on account of the sex.”

“Hadley!”

“Well, you look happy Sook.  Happier than I’ve ever seen you.”

“And I am.  But not just on account of the sex.  He bought me tires.”

“Tires?” Pam drawled drily.

I nodded enthusiastically.

“And a skillet.”

“So?”

“I think what Sook’s trying to say is that Eric looks to her wellbeing,” Hadley said, sounding several degrees of thoughtful on the subject.

I beamed at her on a nod.

“Exactly.”

“Well sure he does,” Pam remarked with a dismissive hand wave.  “He moved that precious throne of his to his basement, didn’t he?”

Hadley looked shocked to her shoes on hearing this bit of news.

“He did?”

“Most definitely.  It’s sitting in front of his big screen even as we speak.”

“Well I sure didn’t tell him to,” I argued in vain.

“Sookie, Eric once fired the janitor just for dusting the thing.”

“He didn’t!”

They nodded as one.

“Then there’s the thing with the vamps,” Hadley added.

“The vamps?” I asked weakly.  I was starting to feel a brain ache coming on, and for once it had nothing to do with my special hearing.

“Eric requested that his top vassals-“

“-Vassals?!”

“-present themselves at Fangtasia last night to meet you.”

“But- but he didn’t even introduce me!” I sputtered wildly.

Pam shrugged negligently.

“They all knew who you were.”

I closed my eyes and took a settling breath.

“Sookie, do you remember the first night at Fangtasia?” Hadley asked anxiously.  “What I said to you?”

“’Vampires don’t think like people,’” I repeated back to her.

“Right.  So honey… don’t give yourself a heart attack over this.”

“I’m not.  I won’t.  I love Eric.”

I opened my eyes and looked between the two of them.

“And my heart’s plenty sturdy off that fact.”

“You were unexpected, Sookie Stackhouse,” Pam said decisively.  “But I am glad for you.”

“Thanks, Pam!” I exclaimed over my weepy-eyes before snatching her up same as I had the fripperies.

“You too,” I told Hadley as her girlfriend made mock muffling noises into my chest.  She smiled delightedly, and wrapped her cool arms around me as I sobbed happily on them both.

“Why am I feeling so stupidly happy?” I sniffled mid-embrace.

I’d no more than gotten the words out when there came a tap, tap, tapping at my window.

I turned and looked, and there was Eric, floating outside with a wicked grin splitting his moonlit face.  He gave a devilish eyebrow wag and a merry little finger wave when he caught my expression.

“Oh you!” I scoffed.

“Well, we’ll just be leaving then,” Pam said, taking Hadley by the crook of the elbow and guiding her out into the hall.  She gave me a quick wink on passing.

Eric slid in through my window as if he’d been doing it his whole life.

“Looks like I missed all the action,” he lilted coyly.

I crossed my arms over my chest and gave him a smirk as he leaned in for a kiss.

“And here I was wondering where Pam got it from.”

“’It?’”

“The dry wicked wit,” I explained just as dryly.

“I trained her well,” he claimed proudly.

“Mmm hmm.  I felt you coming just now, you know.  It made me happy,” I added shyly.

“We are connected through the blood, dear one.  I felt for you, too, though I had not expected to see tears on your happy face.”  He slid his knuckles loving down the arch of my cheekbone.

“Tears of gratitude,” I explained on a light laugh.  I lifted my palms up and ruefully rubbed away the rest.

“And what’s this?” Eric asked curiously on lifting the lace panties off my dresser.

I squeezed my eyes shut and huffed out an annoyed breath.

“An almost surprise.”

Eric lifted the lace to his face and gave it a generous whiff.

“Unworn,” he said, sounding all shades of disappointed.

“It was Tara and Alcide’s idea,” I confessed.

“Was it?”  Eric seemed particularly amused by this information.

“Well, more like a joke, actually.  They piled all these sundries on the counter while I was trying on outfits.  But I decided on seeing them, why shouldn’t I have some nice lingerie?”

Eric glowed all the brighter on hearing that.

“There are more?” he asked eagerly.

“Mmm hmm.”

“Speaking of gratitude…  Remind me to give the man a raise.”

“Speaking of men that work for you…  How’s Chow doing?”

“Quite well, actually.  The women want to fondle his tattoos, and the men want to talk about them.  All in all I am quite pleased.”

“I’m sorry you had to lose a bartender to get him.”

Eric’s face went stony off hearing that.

“I am not.  Longshadow openly challenged my authority by attacking you.”

“And of course there’s the money,” I added, but Eric only shrugged.

“A pittance.  Bruce has already tracked it to an offshore account.”

“Good ol’ Bruce,” I muttered, thinking back to his bathroom stall two-timing with Ginger the barmaid.

“Speaking of Bruce…  it was kind of you to lie on his account-“

I could feel myself flushing on his very unworthy account.

“-but I noticed the moment they stepped in the room.”

“Yeah, you’re just the wiliest of bloodhounds.”

Eric grinned wildly.

“I am at that.”

I sighed then and sat down on my bed, folding my legs up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them.  I tucked my head sideways on my knees and smiled sleepily at Eric.

“You are tired,” he said, perching on the bed next to me and running his fingertips over the crest of my cheek.

“Finally,” I sighed fuzzily.  “With everything’s that’s happened tonight, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to sleep at all.”

“What time do you get off work tomorrow?”

“Oh, ‘bout 11 or 12.  I’m first in, so…”

“I would like you to come by Fangtasia afterwards, if you are feeling up to it.”

“Sure,” I agreed ‘round a yawn.  “More business?”

“Not business, exactly.”

“More vamps you’d like me to not quite meet?”

“Not this time,” he confessed with a shameless grin.  “I just have a need to spend time at the bar, and I’d like you there for company.”

I beamed sleepily at him over that wonderful note.

“More than alrighty then.”

“Excellent.  Your Jeep-“

“-My beast,” I interrupted groggily.

There was a long pause, then “Your beast?”

“Mmm hmm.  That’s what I’m calling it.  The Beast.”

“How very contrary you are,” he said with amused affection.

“I’m not contrary,” I denied on another yawn.  “I just appreciate a good bit of irony, is all.”

I barely noticed as he lifted me and settled me under the covers.  But when I felt him start to shift away, I grabbed for his hand blindly.

“Eric?”

“Yes, my Sookie?”

“You’re the very best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“I am sorry about your pet,” he said softly on petting my hair.

“She lived a happy life.”

He was quiet for a long while.

“How could she not, belonging to you?”

The next morning, I woke to a note and a key.

Dear one,

The corvette is outside.  Enjoy going topless.

E

I was muttering curses over my giddiness as I showered.  When I got downstairs, Alcide was sitting at the table munching on toast and sipping on coffee.  His eyes widened a bit on taking in my vamp improved appearance, but he didn’t say anything as I took a seat.

I sipped at the coffee Gran poured me even though I was miraculously lucid on six hours a sleep.

“What time you need to head in?”

“Three-thirty, or there abouts.  Thanks Gran,” I smiled at her before glancing back at Alcide.  He was nodding companionably.

“I’ve got the truck outside.”

I spread marmalade over my toast as I considered his offer over my own mischievous urges.

“Well, Eric wanted me to go topless today-”

Alcide spit coffee in a brown arch across the breakfast table.

“-So I think we’ll take the corvette,” I finished with perverse good cheer.

“Well that sure was nice of him,” Gran said on turning around with her skillet.

“Sure enough was.”

I sipped innocently at my coffee as Alcide moped at the tablecloth with a desperately awkward hand.

“Oh, Alcide, honey.  Don’t you worry about that,” Gran said on shooing him to his breakfast.  “These things happen.”

Sam was out back unloading a truck shirtless when we pulled up in the corvette.  His eyes widened on taking in my windblown happiness, but he smiled as I skipped up to him.

“Hiya Sam!” I cheered.

“Hey there, Sook.  New ride?”

I shook my head in delighted denial.

“Nope.  Eric’s other ride.”

I batted my lashes innocently at his dropped jaw, and Alcide started coughing maniacally.

“That’s sure nice of him, cher,” Sam managed weakly.

“Idn’t it though?  My Beast will be here tonight, though.  Eric’s having someone pick it up for me.”

“Your… beast,” Sam repeated on a doubter’s drawl.

“Yup.  My new Jeep.  She’s sunshine yellow with beastly tires.  Hence she’s called-”

“The beast.  Right.  Gotcha,” he added with a thumbs up.

“Well, best get in now.  Those tables sure don’t wait themselves!”

I heard them whispering in conference with my vamp improved ears as I skipped off into the building.

“Well what the heck’s gotten in to her?”

“It all started at the car dealership-“

“-The car dealership?!-”

“-Over some tires…”

Sam wasn’t the only one trying to puzzle me out that evening.  Arlene was looking at me strangely as I cheerfully trayed up my drink order for a trio of truckers passing on through to New Orleans.

“I heard about the trouble last night.”

“Eric’s taking care of it,” I said simply.  “So there’s nothing to be scared of.”

“Weren’t for him you wouldn’t have had the trouble to start with.”

“If not for him I’d still be alone and lonely,” I corrected on a quiet smile.  “He’s the best thing to ever happen to me.”

“I can see that,” she said slowly, running her eyes over my lighter hair, my brighter eyes, my darker lips.  I could hear her brain working overtime trying to figure out why it was I looked so different.

Maybe her vamp paid for her to get the works.

“Love makes all the difference,” I said gently, and she was startled enough to blush.

“I reckon it does at that,” she admitted reluctantly.  “You still coming over for Lisa’s birthday tomorrow?”

“Couldn’t keep me away without putting me in a coffin,” I said jokingly.  Arlene only stared.

“Sheesh, I’m only kidding, girl.  I’ll be there, of course.”

But Arlene was too busy giving me ‘The Mom’ eye to make note of my confirmation.

“Sook, honey, that’s not really funny considering.”

“It’s either joke about it or cry,” I told her with a kooky smile.

Then we were both off and tending to tables.

“Hey there, girlie,” Lafayette said as I was scooting past with an iced tea refill.

“Yeah?” I asked, smiling into his dark face.  His eye shadow was particularly feisty today, a neon green that all but screamed, ‘I love the 80’s!’

“You think you can run back and grab me a box of strips, honey?  I’m up to my eyelashes in orders here.”

On saying so, he batted them with a flirtatious vengeance.  I laughed and nodded my consent.

“Let me just drop this off.”

“Sure thing, girlie.  You work them hips like you work them tips!”

I was still laughing as I dropped off the tea.

While I was scrounging around for the strips, I heard the freezer door open, felt the icy air whoosh past out into the warmer bar.  Then I heard Sam’s voice.

“Sookie, Eric is at the bar.”

“He is?” I asked in happy surprise, turning around to face him.

Sam nodded.  He was wearing a peculiar expression strangely akin to constipation.

“He’s asking for you.”

“Alrighty then.  Will you tell him I’ll be right out?” I asked on hitching up the box of chicken fingers onto my hip.

Sam nodded again, then turned to go.

“And Sam?” I called after him on impulse.

He turned back and gave me a patient smile.

“Thanks.”

The smile widened, but he didn’t say anything else.  Curious, I dropped my shields on following him out of the freezer, and found that he was feeling wistful and… ashamed?  I wasn’t sure what to make of that odd combination.  I set the box down on the prep table in the kitchen, then made my way out to the bar to see what had Sam in such a conflicted state.

I experienced a surge of pure joy on seeing Eric standing at the bar top.  He was facing away from me, and I felt a bit ridiculous being so stupidly happy over just the back of his head.  But then he turned and smiled at me and I felt like someone had replaced my brains with rainbows.

“Hi!” I cheered, bouncing up on my tippy toes to kiss him soundly on the mouth.

“I didn’t expect to see you ‘til later.”

“I wanted to surprise you,” he said with a crooked smile.  I could feel through the blood bond that he was just as pleased to see me as I was to see him.

“I can’t ever have too many such surprises.”

We beamed at each other for a moment, and then I heard a strange little mewling sound.

“What’s that?” I asked curiously.

And Eric, with an oddly sheepish expression, opened his hands to reveal the source.

Cupped inside his giant palms was the tinniest, tiniest little sock footed kitten.  I stared at her, glanced up at an expectantly eager Eric, then back again in astonishment.  She blinked at me sleepily, then gave another darling little mewl.

And that was all it took to have me bursting into tears.

I saw Eric and Sam exchange a glance, and then Sam was reaching for the kitten so Eric could reach for me.  The rest of the bar, bereft of Supe senses, were quickly becoming restless.  All they knew was I was crying, and that the giant Viking vampire standing in front of me was somehow the cause.

“Calm down, y’all.  They’re happy tears,” I heard Sam say as Eric was carrying me back to the office.

“My Sookie…  I thought…  Since you had all that extra catnip lying around…”

I cried all the harder into his chest.

“Sorry,” I said after.  I was feeling more than a little sheepish over my public display.

“There’s no need to apologize, dear one.”

Sam had brought the kitten in during the last ten minutes or so, and she was curled up on my lab, purring in pleasure.

“I thought since Tina was no more, and I am more or less responsible-“

“You’re not responsible at all!” I interrupted, appalled.

“I was the catalyst, at the very least.”

“You’ll quit that nonsense right this very instant, Eric Northman.  Hatred’s the culprit, and as old as you are, that’s something older still.  You trying to take blame for it is akin to claiming credit for the rising sun.  The nerve of you, after just last night lecturing me on being used to folk’s ill opinions!”

“I will take the kitten home for you.  You will stay inside until I return.”

“I will?” I asked coyly.

“If you know what’s good for you,” he dead-panned.

“Alright, already.  Sheesh to you too, buddy.  Nobody gets my funny ha ha today.”

“Were you trying to joke about your health with someone else reasonable, then?’

I would have swatted at him, but I was afraid of waking the kitten.  I told him so, and he finally laughed.

“I will see you in an hour or so, my Sookie.”

“I love you,” I sighed on his gentle kiss.

“My heart,” he murmured, and then he was gone in a sexy-scented flash.

I sighed once more for his heart’s good measure, then went out to check on my abandoned tables.

An hour or so later, I came out to the sight of my veriest favorite Viking holding my least favorite vermin by the scruffs of the neck.  Eric was positively glowing with vicious enthusiasm as he suspended them aloft.  There was a silver chain curled by his left foot, spilled halfway out of Denise Mackray’s oversized purse.  I sighed with reluctant sensibility.

“Drop the Rats, Eric.”

“Which Rat?” he inquired innocently.  “This rat?”

He shook Mack viciously by the neck, until his limbs snapped and popped with the motion.  Mack moaned like a dying man.

“Or this rat, perhaps?”

He shook Denise with equal force, but she wasn’t nearly as docile.  She hissed and cursed at him, her poufy red hair flying around her face like a burnt out halo.

“I’m gonna get you ‘n your bitch both!” she screeched at us.

On hearing that, Eric tightened up his chokehold on her neck until she went shriller still.

“It’s not enough for you thinking all sorts of nastiness my way all the time, you have to go and try and kill my boyfriend?” I hissed back at her.

Denise just let out of stream of profanity that would have made a sailor blush.

“Trailer trash talk aside…  You’re not welcome here no more.”

I looked to Eric.

“Should we call the law on them?”

Denise settled down somewhat on that note, and it made me warm to the idea all the more.  But Eric only shook his head.

“I would rather leave the sheriff to tend more pressing crimes.  I will glamour them instead,” Eric decided with great reluctance.

Eric’s glamour was as subtle as it was powerful.  The night stilled for it as it swelled into the air.  Birds went quiet, crickets went silent, and the Rats went dumbfounded for it.

“You will not return to this place, nor harm another vampire but in justified self defense.  Should you considering consuming vampire blood in the future, you will remember that it makes you very, very ill.”

“It does?” Mack asked in dazed surprise.

“Life threatening ill,” Eric insisted over another fat surge of power.

“Life threateningly ill,” he agreed with sad confidence.

“That was sure weird,” I said as I watched them drive off in their sun-faded red Ford convertible.

“It may not hold.  Addiction is a powerful motivator.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

He was still looking a whole lot toothy over the Rat deal.

“Eric, what would you have me do?  Just stand by an’ let you go all homicidal on two of my customers?”

“Self defense,” he pointed out pissily.

“Overkill,” I insisted.

“So you say.”

He was searching my face so intently that I raised my free hand up to my hair again, smoothing it back compulsively.

“What are you looking at?” I asked self consciously.

“I was checking your ears for my fangs,” he said so seriously that it took a minute to sink in.

“Eric!” I wailed, swatting at him.  “I can’t believe that Pam actually said that!  What was she thinking?”

“She has never known me to turn down the attentions of a beautiful woman, Sookie.”  He looked thoughtful.  “And quite truthfully, I have never known me to turn down the attentions of a beautiful woman.”

“So what changed?” I asked lightly, as if we weren’t standing in Merlotte’s parking lot making intense declarations.  I had no intention of my letting my ‘I love you’ serve as a silver ball and chain on Eric, but I wasn’t exactly above asking for elaborations, either.

“I think you know,” he said, staring down into my eyes.  My breath caught at the expression there, and I leaned up on my tip toes to kiss him, hand pressed against the tight muscles of his chest.

He groaned into my mouth and kissed me like he was eating me, furiously, as if he would never kiss a woman again, not if he lived for another thousand years.  But this time, I noted with some surprise, there were no fangs.  When he buried his face in my neck and groaned, I felt myself melt into the embrace.

“My Sookie,” he whispered against my throat, pressing a kiss to my throbbing pulse before pulling back to look down into my eyes.

“You will be the end of me, woman,” he muttered on shaking me slightly.

“This is the beginning,” I insisted on a correction, and he gave a warm ghost of a smile.

“Wisdom for the wary,” he murmured consideringly.

Hearing that pinched more than a little.  I didn’t say anything, but Eric caught my feelings anyhow.

“Not of you, dear one.  Of the loss of you.”

“Oh,” I murmured shyly over my all-but-bursting insides.  Then, ‘cause I was suddenly in a sharing type mood, “Are you hungry?”

Eric gave a subtle little lip lick, eyelids dropping to hoods in the shadows of the parking lot.

I stepped up to him and pressed my pulse directly over his moistened lips.  His big hand came up, long fingers wrapping possessively around my wrist.  His other hand was planted palm-flat to the center of my back, pushing me closer until our hips bumped.  I heard the snick of fangs, and then the sharp sweet pain of being pierced.  I let out a gasp and gripped my own need into the fabric of his shirt.  I could feel my heartbeat pumping into his mouth as he drank, feel the persuasion of his eyes locked lustily on mine, and when he pressed his leg between mine, I came shuddering for us both.
“This parking lot has bore witness to more of my intimate acts in the last week than my own bedroom has in the past, um… let me think… ever.”

I gave a laugh as he settled me against the driver’s side of my Beast.

“Where’s your corvette,” I asked him breathlessly as his hands started sliding teasingly down my sides.

“Pam has the corvette, Hadley has your Gran, and you-“ he smiled sinfully “-are about to have me.”

“I am?” I inquired airlessly.

“You are indeed,” he assured me silkily.  “Have I ever told you how very fond I am of your little work shorts?”

“Nope.”

“Even more so of what’s under them.”

His big hands slid up under the hem and kneaded demonstratively at my butt cheeks.

“The Beast could do with a nice christening,” I managed diplomatically.  “There’s a lake nearby, over by my parent’s place.”

Eric drove us, and I discovered in short order just how wonderfully dexterous my deliciously tall Viking was.  I was wearing one of the candy fripperies underneath, a stretch of pale blue lace that sat high on my hips and snapped easily under the fingers of my questing lover.

“Oops,” he said with mock guilt.

“Screw it for me,” I said with genuine joy.

Then, “You got enough leg room?”

“Room enough,” he murmured on sliding inside me.

My entire body constricted for the motion, nipples hard to points, face flush to heat.  His hips pistoned like needy jack hammers, his thumb rubbed my clit with precision point pressure.  Over and over and over he slid into me, pushing me further and further up into his controlled frenzy of relentless pleasure.  Shoving into me deeper and deeper, until I was impossibly blissed under his continual bombardment of ruthless sensation.  I came screaming into the night air, Eric bucking into his own conclusion a few seconds later.

“Wow,” I sighed after.  “Just… wow.”

Eric was staring into my face, sucking up every detail like he’d never sucked my blood.

“You are a miraculous creature,” he said softly.

I folded myself down on him, curling my head into his cool shoulder, wrapping my arms round his strong back.

“Lordy, I already cried once today.  You best knock it off or you’re gonna turn me into a regular old sob machine.”

“I have never been comfortable around tears,” Eric confessed cautiously.  I had to smile at his reluctant tone.

“Not even when you were human?”

“Certainly not then.  I had three sisters that lived to adulthood, and the youngest… Anya…  she wielded them as precisely as I ever did a sword.”

“The mighty Eric Northman, roped up by a slip of a girl,” I teased on a giggle.  Looked like Alcide hadn’t been so far off his mark, after all.

And what’s more…  It looked like my vampire lover had a couple of female-sized soft spots on his heart, even when claiming not to know how to feel with one.

“My lover, you may rope me anyway you would like aside from with silver.”  He paused consideringly.  “Perhaps even then under some circumstances.”

“You’re saying you trust me then, I take it?”

“From nearly the moment we met.”

I pushed off him and stared down into his moonlit face.

“How could you’ve been so sure?”

There was no teasing now.  I was kneeling naked on his legs, bare breasts just an eye drop down, but he ignored them for my face.  He was serious as grave dirt when he spoke.

“I see you.”

“Oh Eric,” I sighed softly on dropping my forehead down to his.  “I love you.”

When he kissed me in response, I could taste the words off his deep set heart.