Chapter 30

EPOV

What was she saying?

I could see that her mouth was moving, but all of the blood had rushed from my brain into my dick when she bent over in front of me and once I caught sight of her breasts I had no clue what she’d been talking about. Luckily the table hid my physical reaction seeing her practically spilling out of her top, but my hands were itching to return to our earlier mutual exploration and I had to maintain my grip on the table’s edge before they shot out and freed her breasts from their lacy confines.

Surely she’d be more comfortable without her bra on. It was probably healthier for her since it wouldn’t restrict her airflow, right?

My fingers and dick twitched at the same time while my brain attempted to plot a way to talk her into letting me take it off for her, but everything fell by the wayside when she leaned forward. It seemed like a dream with her movements happening in slow motion and I was frozen, unable to move with the exception of one muscle.

My tongue darted out tasting the skin at the top of the valley of her breasts, each side of my tongue gliding along each of my future BFF’s before Sookie pulled away leaving me no way to give them a proper greeting.

How were we supposed to become best friends if they didn’t stick around?

As I pulled away from where my head had been resting on the tabletop I swiped the line of drool from my mouth and turned back to face Sookie. Her entire body was flushed red and she was fanning herself again. I was feeling a bit hot and bothered too, but my reaction had to do with her while hers was probably from the heat of the stove and I tried to will my erection away so I could focus on something other than Sookie sprawled out underneath me. All it took was remembering our earlier conversation about Quinn and imagining her sprawled out underneath him for my desire to disappear. The thought of his hands on her made my own clench into fists and had he been there I would have hit him again.

I knew my jealousy was irrational and I could hardly throw stones when it came to our sexual histories, but the caveman inside of me kept screaming out she was mine. I didn’t like knowing there was anyone else who’d known her intimately, especially knowing he could remember it and I couldn’t, and if I thought I could get away with it Quinn wouldn’t live to see another day.

Maybe Pam had a hitman on her payroll.

“Eric?”

The sound of Sookie’s voice pulled me from my violent fantasies and judging by the look on her face she was waiting for a response to an unheard question. Her ability to calm me down with nothing more than her presence was still a bit unsettling, but I mentally shrugged it off saying, “Sorry, what were you saying?”

And can you take off your bra?

She smiled replying, “I asked how your day was.”

My day? Who gives a shit about my day? My night, however, was fan-fucking-tastic after we got our daily fight out of the way, but since she was there for all of the best parts I doubted she needed a recap and it did seem like a couple-y thing to do. Couples talked about their day, right? I thought it over for a moment and said, “Well, you know how my morning went at the gym and after that I just went to work.”

She rolled her eyes, I assumed about my lack of detail, but nothing really jumped out to tell her about aside from that brunette trying to pin me down all day long and I really didn’t want to go there with Sookie now. Thinking about my initial run in made me remember using Bill as a shield, reminding me about the poker game on Wednesday nights.

“Uh, I don’t remember if I told you, but I normally have a couple of the guys over on Wednesday nights for a poker game around seven. Is that okay with you?”

It felt odd not only asking for her approval to do something I’d been doing for months in my own house, but wanting her approval as well. We found enough things to fight about already and until we reached the stage where we could have make up sex, I didn’t want to find any other things to fight over. However, when we finally did reach that stage, I’d be picking fights left and right.

A smile lit up her face as she replied, “Of course I don’t mind. Would you like for me to make dinner for everyone, or I could make a bunch of different finger foods?”

I stood and walked over to stand next to Sookie in what was becoming our routine and dried the pans she’d washed saying, “You don’t have to go through the trouble. I normally just pick up some chips and pretzels to go with the beer.”

She bumped my side with her hip replying, “Don’t be silly, it’s no trouble at all. Will you be home around the same time that night? I can still have your dinner ready by six and then put out some hors d’oeuvres for everyone. Are they a buffalo wings and loaded potato skins type of crowd, or mini-quiche and cucumber sandwich set?”

I laughed at the mental image of Alcide and Tray holding up their pinky fingers eating a dainty little sandwich, especially after seeing Alcide wolf down the sandwiches Sookie had made the day before. Bill would probably prefer the ‘Ladies-who-lunch’ cuisine, but that was tough shit because I wanted wings.

“Wings and skins would be great,” I responded with a playful return bump of my hip against hers. Sookie hadn’t been looking at me when I did it and either she wasn’t prepared for it or I was a bit more forceful than I’d meant to be because her body slammed into the counter and she cried out in pain. My hands had been occupied with a pan and a dish towel so I couldn’t grab onto her in time and I exclaimed, “I’m so sorry! I was just playing around. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Fuck! The last thing I wanted to do was give her more bruises; at least not the kind that didn’t come from cumming.

I quickly emptied my hands and as I reached out to make sure she was okay Sookie turned with a smile on her face saying, “Gotcha!” I didn’t see the sink spray nozzle in her hand until it was too late, nor did I notice her turn the faucet to cold and screeched like a girl when the icy water hit my face, neck, and bare chest while she laughed. I was too flustered to think to do anything more than reaching for a pot still full of soapy water in the sink and tossed the sudsy contents right at her.

Sookie just laughed harder yelling out, “At least it was warm water before turning the nozzle to face my crotch. I couldn’t turn in time to avoid the first few seconds of spray with the icy blast turning my already blue balls even bluer and I decided it was time to declare all out war. She must have seen the change in my expression because she looked panicked as she yipped and took off running out of the kitchen with me hot on her heels a second later.

I followed her into the next room where I stalked her, circling around the pool table, and feeling every bit the predator hunting his prey. “Sookie…” I purred with my eyes locked onto hers, “I’m going to get you…”

In more ways than one.

The look on her face was both frightened and amused as we continued to dance around the table and the sexual tension between us when she said, “You have to catch me first,” and took off into the family room. By the time I skidded around the table, noting wet feet on hardwood floors don’t mix well, and entered the room I saw the drapes blowing through the open backdoor with a flash of her blond hair flying out in the backyard.

I picked up speed once my feet hit the patio pavers and, thanks to my longer legs, I was able to snatch Sookie off her feet and into my arms near the edge of the pool with her screaming and laughing the whole time.

“Caught you…” I whispered into her ear as she calmed down and I couldn’t resist running my teeth along the outer shell of her ear, feeling her whole body shiver in my arms.

“What are you going to do with me?” she whispered back.

Many things. Many naked things. Sometimes partially clothed, but mostly naked.

Since I didn’t want to push her too much just yet on that front it left me with no other option.

A part of me worried the neighbors would call the cops when she screamed again right before her head was swallowed up by the pool water, but it was worth it seeing her bobbing back up to the top sputtering ‘son of a bitch’ and ‘mother fucker’.

“You teach kindergarten right?” Mouth. Like. A. Sailor.

She just shot me a dirty look trying not to laugh and I dove into the pool already not liking the distance between us. I grabbed her waist, popping up next to her, and pulled her back flush against my chest, wrapping my arms around her, and saying, “I forgot to ask. How was your day dear?”

She giggled and relaxed in my arms as she began reciting everything that had happened at school that day. Her boss sounded like an asshole, but I was glad there wasn’t anything they could do to Sookie because she’d married me and I was sure she would have hated the media shit storm I would have had Pam create if she had been fired. The protective feelings she managed to produce within me only grew with every passing day and while it was a new sensation for me, it wasn’t unwelcome.

My body tensed a little and I held her a little tighter hearing about her new co-worker Sam. Sookie hadn’t said anything more than he’d been nice and gave her a tour of the school, but I had a tough time pushing the jealous beast inside of me back down since it would be difficult to pee on her and mark my territory while we were still in the pool. It lessened when I caught a flash of the gold band on her finger and the red tattooed heart above it and it evoked the image of the rest of the tattoo I could still see clearly in my mind.

Eric’s

Had it really been just two days earlier when the sight and realization of what our tattoos meant seemed like the biggest nightmare ever?

I nuzzled the back of Sookie’s wet blond head as she continued prattling on about her day while we floated in the water and I reminisced over the time we’d spent together since then already starting to question if maybe she was just a dream come true I’d never even realized I’d had.

Or maybe I was a pussy.

We stayed in the pool until well after dark with Sookie talking the majority of the time. I mostly paid attention, but sometimes my thoughts would drift from her words to just her. Even having her in my arms wasn’t enough with my mind plotting ways to get her to at least stay there, but I knew she’d balk if I suggested her moving into my bedroom right fucking now. I didn’t even want her there for sex, well…I did, but that wasn’t my primary reason at the moment. More and more I was coming to hate any distance between us, physical or emotional, and I felt better when I was touching her.

I was nowhere near ready to admit that though so when she mentioned needing to clean up the kitchen since it was getting late I racked my brain trying to come up with a way to spend the night with her. It came to me as we were making our way into the house in our wet clothes having already failed in my attempt at convincing Sookie we should just strip down outside.

“Do you want to watch a movie later on?” I figured she’d be tired after her long day and if she happened to fall asleep in my arms in front of the TV, so be it.

We’d made it into the kitchen and Sookie handed me a towel she’d retrieved from the laundry room before asking, “What movie?”

We both dried off as best we could still clothed and I tried not to leer too much at her in her wet t-shirt while we cleaned up the kitchen and I listed off as many movies in my collection as I could remember. I had hundreds of them and said as much. If I owned it, I liked it, so she could pick whatever she wanted.

It didn’t mean I was a giant pansy for practically prancing out of the room in glee when she’d said ‘okay’, right? I barely even felt like one.

I took a quick shower to rinse off the pool chemicals and threw on a t-shirt and a pair of pajama pants before heading back downstairs. Sookie had just requested something either ‘funny’ or ‘action-y’ so I dug through my collection while she got showered and changed. I found the perfect movie, both funny and action-y and popped it into the DVD player a minute before she came into the room carrying a plate of those cookies she’d made for me. She sat down next to me on the couch sipping her tea and I was overrun with the scent of cherries again, from her and from the cookies. Since I couldn’t eat her just yet I bit into one of the cookies and dimmed the lights before turning the movie on.

Sookie had been taking another sip of her tea when she sputtered and coughed with me looking at her concerned asking, “Are you okay?”

“Uh huh,” she coughed out. “Is this ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’?” she asked gesturing at the screen.

“Yes; why? Do you not like it?” I secretly loved the whole trilogy and was excited there was a fourth installment coming out soon.

“No, I do,” she said. “Which one is it?”

I sat back and wrapped my arm around her shoulders urging her to tuck into my side which she readily did before saying, “Dean Man’s Chest. It’s the best one because they RELEASE THE KRAKEN!”

It took a while for Sookie to stop coughing from her inhaled tea, but I found her a straw to use so she wouldn’t choke to death and it wasn’t long after that, that I had her right where I wanted her: asleep in my arms.