Chapter 86

SPOV

I drove home from school with a smile on my face and a sense of accomplishment I hadn’t felt in a very long time. Perhaps they were still feeling me out a bit, but my students had been wonderful and even Tara had been tolerable. She’d eyed me suspiciously from the moment she entered my classroom, but the attitude I’d prepared myself to face from her never surfaced. She remained quiet while I taught the class and when I called on her to answer a question halfway through the lesson to see if she’d been paying attention, she’d answered me correctly without any hesitation. In the hallways it was easy to differentiate the troublemakers from the students who genuinely wanted to be there to learn and thankfully, with the advanced course I was teaching, my classes appeared to be thug-free.

And I didn’t even shit my pants!

I found out from Mr. Beck the Drama Club met on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school from two-thirty until four, so I assured him I’d be there the following day. He was just as nice as his mother, if not a little frazzled, but it was understandable considering how much he had to do each day and I didn’t envy him one bit. All in all, my day couldn’t have gone any better and I wanted to share it all with Eric, but knowing I’d have to wait until he got home was my day’s only low point. He shouldn’t have been home until sometime after six, so when I walked in the door just after three, I was surprised to hear noises coming from the den and even more surprised to see Eric sitting on the couch watching TV.

Coming to a stop behind him, I asked, “What are you doing home?” My eyes lifted towards the TV to see what had him so captivated and I felt the blush blooming at a rapid rate underneath my skin seeing our bow chicka wow wow big screen debut and sputtered, “Oh my God…are you watching our iPorn?”

Eric and I had only watched parts of it together once, with me missing the majority of it thanks to me trying to see it through my squinty eyes, completely embarrassed seeing everything God gave me on video, and with everything that happened since then I’d forgotten all about it. I’d known Eric had uploaded it to his iPod before the accident and told him then that if he lost it even Jesus wouldn’t be able to save him from me.

I was somewhat mesmerized and quite impressed by the HD quality seeing Eric’s very lifelike naked ass on screen when I was suddenly pulled over the back of the couch, with Eric pulling me on me further until I was settled on his lap. I giggled thinking he was all hot and bothered from watching our Sookie Goes Down Under skin flick, but the laughter died away when I saw how serious he looked. I started to worry thinking maybe he was upset finding it; worried he thought it was something I’d been keeping from him, but his next words left me taken aback.

“I love you.”

“Huh?” I asked, surprised. We’d spent an entire week virtually in seclusion with one another; we hadn’t slept apart once since he’d come home from the hospital; we’d had sex in practically every room in the house and even outside on the patio, but it took him watching a pornographic video of us together to tell me he loved me? If that was the case, there sure as hell wouldn’t be any sequel.

Where in the fuck did my Master Wooer go?

“I love you,” he repeated. Seeing the intensity of his now glistening eyes took the wind right back out of my sails and before I could say anything he continued, “I’ve known for a while now, I think even from the moment I first saw you walk into my room at the hospital, that I felt something for you that I couldn’t explain. It’s been driving me crazy and I kept waiting for my memories to come back to tell me what it was or to see if maybe it would go away, but if anything, it’s only gotten stronger. I’d thought it might be love, but I had no frame of reference to compare it to and I was afraid to be that vulnerable. But I’m not afraid of it anymore. I don’t doubt it anymore. It has to be love because what else could explain all of the ways you make me feel? I want to protect you from the world and would do anything you asked of me, if only to keep a smile on your face and your tears at bay. I want to swallow you whole so I can keep you all to myself, but then I would miss seeing the mischief in your eyes and hearing your laughter. I wouldn’t be able to feel the heat of your body against mine or bury myself so far inside of you that I no longer knew where one of us ended and the other began.”

He moved his hands up to cup my cheeks and wiped the falling tears from my eyes, adding, “You make me feel whole. You make me feel alive. You just make me feel and the thought of losing you terrifies me. I’ve done nothing to deserve you; I don’t deserve you, but I’ll never let you go.” His hands dropped from my face and laced the fingers of one hand with my left and brought them up to rest over his heart with his fingertips brushing across my wedding band, saying, “I don’t need my memories to know what I feel in here. You are my wife.” His other hand moved around my back and came to rest over my abdomen as he said, “You are the mother of my child and all that I am, all that I have is yours.” He leaned forward with his forehead resting against mine and looked into my eyes as he said, “I am yours because I am hopelessly in love with you.”

Master Wooer? Oh how I’ve missed you…

I was a sobbing runny nosed mess by the time he was done and I flung myself at him crying, “I love you too…”, but his pained gasp and the way his body flinched had me pulling right back again, asking, “What is it? Did I hurt you?”

How much weight could I have possibly gained already?

“It’s nothing,” he protested, while trying to pull me back towards him, but I could tell he was lying and only then noticed that his hands were a little swollen and had cuts on them.

“What happened to your hands?” I asked. Wondering what I’d missed out on during our few short hours apart made me remember that he shouldn’t even be home yet and I followed up with, “And why are you home already?”

“Sookie,” he growled frustratingly. “I just told you that I’m in love with you. I’ve been watching our sex tape for hours. Can we go over the rest of our day later?” He emphasized his point by grabbing onto my hips and rubbing me against his point.

He made a strong argument. A compelling one.

I wasn’t going to argue with him, but he wouldn’t have allowed me to anyway because his lips were on mine in the next moment, both tender and forceful at the same time. I could lose myself in his kisses if it weren’t for his skillful hands sliding up underneath my blouse and kneading my breasts over my bra. I made a couple of points myself and Eric pinched and rolled them with his fingertips making my hips roll against his and now that all of me was on board the Eric Northman Express I was anxious for the train to leave the station, but Eric was intent on taking his time. When I moved my mouth to trail down the side of his neck, I decided to give him a little incentive and the bite I gave him on the curve where his shoulder began was rewarded with a grunt from him and I heard the buttons scatter across the floor at the same time I felt my shirt fly open with Eric nibbling his way down my chest.

All aboard…

Hearing us having sex in the background noise from the TV was a major turn on and I reached down, grabbing onto the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it up over his head so we could get to the good stuff. The good stuff starting off with his bare chest, but as soon as my eyes landed on the fresh bruise forming on his side, I asked, “What…” but Eric’s hands halted my question when they pulled my slacks open with one sliding inside my wet panties and started rubbing over my clit while he said, “Later.”

“Oh,” I moaned. “Okay…later is good,” I panted.

So… fucking… good….

Either I had already put on a few pounds or my slacks were made by Hyundai because Eric’s hand was too big to be able to move around like I needed him to, so while I stood up to take them off Eric took the time to pull off his shorts before pulling me back down on top of him so I was straddling his lap. He’d turned his body so he was leaning against the armrest and kissed his way across my shoulder to my neck, nudging my head to turn towards the TV, and said, “Do you see us lover?”

My eyes, which had been closed, opened up and I saw Eric and me on the screen. There was definitely something erotic about watching us have sex while feeling his naked flesh pressed against mine and I moaned with my head falling back and my eyes still glued to the screen as he shifted his hips so he could tease me, sliding his length through my folds. Eric’s lips latched onto my breast, tracing my nipple with his tongue, with his arms supporting the upper half of my body and he matched every swivel of my hips with a thrust of his own.

“Do you know how turned on I’ve been since I found your gift this afternoon?” he asked, as his lips moved across my chest to my other breast.

I have a pretty good idea.

He grabbed onto my hips and ground me down against him, asking “Do you know how hard it was to wait for you to come home?”

From what I could feel it had to have been downright painful.

Eric trailed open mouthed kisses up my chest, across my collarbone to my jaw line and ended with tender kisses across my face before he looked into my eyes and asked, “Do you know how much I love you?”

I melted in an instant seeing the emotional sincerity behind his eyes and nodded, whispering, “I love you too.”

I realized, up until then, I’d only been kidding myself; telling myself I didn’t need to hear Eric say the words; that knowing he loved me was enough, but hearing him; seeing the truth of it in his eyes made me recognize just how much I’d missed it.

How much I’d missed him.

When he slid inside of me I felt whole in a whole new way. Sex with Eric was always fantastic, but since the accident our sexploits had mostly been about having fun or satisfying our carnal needs. But now, even without his memories, I felt like I had him back. It felt like I had him back in the way he moved inside of me; the way he looked into my eyes like, for him, there was no one else in the world. I could feel every beat of his heart both against my skin and inside of me. He was mine again, completely, and I didn’t want the moment to end. I wanted to memorize every flicker of emotion across his face; every moan and pant that left his lips because I knew now not to take them for granted. I knew I should cherish every moment we shared because tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed and the intensity of it all took me by surprise and threw me over the edge into orgasmic bliss before I was ready to let go, but Eric held fast and powered through. With his hands on my hips he continued to thrust into me from underneath and I had to grab onto his shoulders just to stay upright. I’d intended to let my eyes take in the visual smorgasbord in front of me starting with the way his sweaty hair fell over his face, but when his blue eyes locked onto mine, I couldn’t look away. If I didn’t know any better I would’ve sworn he’d hypnotized me and commanded me to cum again with nothing more than the look in his eyes and when I did, Eric went with me and the cries that left our lips echoed the sounds coming from the TV.

His hands slid up my body with his fingers lacing into my hair as he pulled my face to his and kissed me until our bodies stopped twitching before pulling back and saying again, “I love you.”

And I would never tire of hearing it.

“I love you too,” I smiled and nuzzled against his chest with my face pressed against his neck. Nothing smelled better than Eric and I was sniffing him like a bloodhound while Wicked and Immoral went on a perimeter check of Eric’s body when I felt him flinch. Remembering his new bruise I sat up to get a better look at it, asking, “What happened?”

I could tell Eric didn’t want to talk about it which only made me more interested in what he didn’t want to say, but he eventually sighed and said, “Bill fucking Compton. That’s what happened.”

“He hit you?” I practically screeched. It was one thing for Pam to beat on him, but I’d have no moral dilemma over slicing Bill Compton’s balls off with a rusty spoon.

“I hit him first,” Eric proudly proclaimed. “He overheard me talking about the amnesia and tried to worm an invitation to my next poker game.”

“Are you serious?” I asked. “Did he think that just because you couldn’t remember what happened, no one else would either?”

Douche bag.

I still thought that Eric had overreacted though, especially since he wasn’t fully healed yet, and said, “But that’s no reason to hit him. You could’ve gotten hurt. You’re not all that mobile yet you know.”

A part of my brain wondered if you could trademark a facial expression because his damn sexy raised eyebrow coupled with his smirk was definitely a money maker and he rubbed his nakedness against my nakedness saying, “You weren’t complaining about my lack of mobility a few minutes ago.”

Trying and failing to look unimpressed, I mocked, “Your ego is just as big as the rest of you. I’m surprised you don’t have your own zip code.”

Eric just grinned back at me saying, “Then I guess it’s a good thing you love me and my big ego, huh?”

He looked so happy that in that moment My Eric and This Eric were no longer two separate people in my mind. This Eric was My Eric and I grinned back like a doofus and agreed, “Yeah. I do.” The Master Wooer was also the Master Subject Changer so I quickly went back to our original topic, asking, “Did you get in trouble for hitting him? Is that why you’re home?” Did they send people home from real jobs for fighting like they did in school?

“No and yes,” he replied, still grinning in his post coital high.

“Not and funny,” I responded back. I was Jason Stackhouse’s sister. We didn’t have cable TV growing up and the only books Jason picked up were matchbooks. I could play any dumb word game he could think of for hours on end.

When he attempted to distract me further by reaching for my boobs I swatted his hands away and pulled his t-shirt over my head since he’d ripped the buttons off of my blouse. When I just silently stared at him his eyes darkened as he finally explained, “He wanted me to give you to him.”

“What?” I asked completely mortified. What in the hell did he think I was? An unwanted puppy?

“He said he knew our marriage was a sham. He claimed he knew that we didn’t know each other prior to our wedding night and that I should be sick of you by now. He wanted me to give you to him and said if I did it would be our little secret.” Eric was practically snarling by the end of his explanation and I was internally snarling right along with him.

“Did you hit him hard?” I asked, wishing I’d been there to have gotten my own wallops in.

His eyes lightened some and he smiled admitting, “I’m pretty sure I knocked his teeth loose. Pam got in a kick to his ribs too.”

I was jealous having missed out on the Bill Compton beat down and remembered the stranger danger sensation I’d felt when he’d first walked into the kitchen the night of the poker game. Something just didn’t sit right from the moment I’d met him and I asked, “How did he know though? How could he know that we didn’t know each other before that night in Vegas?”

“I don’t know,” Eric shrugged. “Even without my memories of those three weeks I’m sure I never would’ve confided in him. Pam thinks it was just a lucky guess because I’d never had a girlfriend before you.”

I tried to stifle the snort before it came out, but I was just a hair too late and Eric looked at me, asking, “What? It’s true.”

“It’s still true,” I laughed. “You went straight from booty calls to a wife. Technically, you’ve still never had a girlfriend.” Eric did his best Pam impersonation by rolling his eyes while I snickered uncontrollably and when I finally calmed down, I asked, “So what happened after you tried to turn him into a Jack-O-Lantern?”

Shoving a lit flare up Bill’s ass sounded like a pretty good idea with Halloween less than a week away.

Eric pulled me down so I was lying on his chest again and ran his hand up and down my back as he explained, “The producers came in and when they heard what he’d said they fired him. It seems your ability to charm everyone you meet extends to them as well because they were pissed.”

“That’s me,” I sighed theatrically. “I’m so fucking charmed I should have been cast to replace Shannon Doherty’s character Prue. My character could’ve been named Precious or Princessa.” I sat up so I could look at him and giggled, adding, “Since you’re such a car snob they could’ve named me Porsche! I bet I would’ve gotten your attention then.”

Eric looked back at me seriously and said, “You would’ve had my attention regardless.”

Master Wooer in da house…

Once I got my meltiness in check I resumed my original position against Eric’s chest and asked, “So what happens now with your show?”

“They’re rewriting the script to write Bill’s character out of the show and they’ll recast another actor into his spot. The rest of us get a little vacation in the meantime.”

My hopes started inching up as I asked, “Does that mean you’ll be able to go to my doctor’s appointment with me on Thursday?”

Eric pulled my chin up with his fingertips so he could look into my eyes, saying, “Yes.” His brow furrowed a little as he hesitantly asked, “Did you want to go alone?”

“No!” I exclaimed a little louder than I’d meant to. Softening my voice I admitted, “I wanted you to go, but with work and all I would’ve understood why you couldn’t go before.”

At least that was what I kept telling myself.

Eric looked relieved and said, “I want to go. I want to be there for all of it.” A smile broke out on his face as he added, “Frank is my baby too. I should be there to see how he’s doing.”

I grinned, despite my eye roll, and said, “Jack will be very happy to have you there.”

Eric matched my eye roll, admitting, “If you didn’t lust after Johnny Depp so much I might’ve agreed to the name Jack since he was created with the help of the Kraken.”

I snickered, blushing over the fact that I’d told him all of the names I’d amassed for his baby maker, and argued, “I don’t lust after Johnny Depp.” Seeing Eric’s unconvinced expression, I added cheekily, “I lust after Johnny Depp in a pirate costume complete with eyeliner, accent, and swagger.”

I’d be willing to bet there were MANY babies born out of women watching that swagger.

“So,” Eric asked, “if I wore eyeliner and drunkenly stumbled around with an accent you’d lust after me too?”

“That depends,” I laughed. “Would you be dressed like a pirate or Dame Edna?”

Eric just stared back at me trying to not let his amusement show so I patted his chest and said, “You don’t need any costumes or makeup. I lust after just you and have since I was ten years old.”

Seeing the look on Eric’s face I immediately regretted my honest admission. “Really…” he grinned uncontrollably.

“Uh oh,” I choked out. Pretending I couldn’t breathe, I clutched at my throat and gasped, “You’re ego…it’s sucking…the oxygen…from the room. Can’t…breathe…”

Seeing the fiendish look in Eric’s eyes would’ve made my panties wet had I been wearing any and he pushed me backwards onto the couch as he hovered over me asking, “Do you need mouth to mouth resuscitation?” He waggled his eyebrows adding, “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.”

“You do not!” I laughed. “You play a…” was all I could say because Eric cut off my oxygen supply for real with his lips on mine.

Doctor Northman was in da house too.

When we finally untangled ourselves we made our way into the kitchen and I opened the refrigerator to figure out what we’d be having for dinner when I noticed an ass load of chicken and steaks inside. There was even a whole turkey and I looked over at Eric, gesturing at the contents, asking, “Are you getting sympathy cravings?”

He looked back at me a little unsure and shrugged, saying, “I read online that you should be eating lots of protein, so I had Alcide run out and stock up.”

“You looked up pregnancy info online?” I asked, both shocked and touched by his admission. Even though it wasn’t a competition, he was already the better parent since I hadn’t had the time to do it myself.

“Well, yeah. I was worried that you didn’t want me to be a part of it all since you didn’t want to change your appointment and I wanted to know what was going on,” he said sheepishly.

“You know that’s not true, don’t you?” I asked, walking over and putting my arms around him.

He kissed the top of my head saying, “Yes, I was just a little unsettled this morning.”

He went on to tell me how when he’d finally realized he loved me it was too late for him to call me and he freaked out for the rest of the day. Hearing his confession made me second guess not telling him that I loved him every day before then, but there was nothing I could do about it besides saying it again now. “I love you.”

“Good,” he said, kissing the top of my head again. “Because I love you too.”

Feeling his arms around me made my thoughts from the previous day come back and I asked, “Will you still love me when I’m as big as a whale?”

My singing was bad enough it could probably pass for a whale’s song.

His arms tightened around me as he said, “You won’t be as big as a whale.”

“So, that’s a ‘no’?” I hedged.

Eric pulled back to look me in the eye and said, “I’ll love you no matter what. You won’t be fat. You’ll be pregnant.” I was still obviously unconvinced, so Eric sat down in one of the chairs and pulled me down onto his lap and said, “Since you’ve been lusting after me since you were ten…”

I interrupted him, chuckling, “You’re never gonna let that go, are you?”

“No,” he smiled and continued, “So you know that I’ve been working for a very long time. I’ve made a lot of money and have great financial advisors that have invested my money wisely over the years. It’s a considerable amount.”

When he paused, I asked, “So what…you can pay for my liposuction after the baby is born?”

A low growl ran through his chest as he ignored my question and said, “I can buy pretty much whatever I want, but what you’ve given me; what you’re giving me is something priceless. You’ve made it painfully obvious that you can’t be bought and a baby is something I never wanted until I met you. Your body growing to accommodate our baby is just the gift wrap to the greatest present imaginable.”

He was good.

The emotional roller coaster we’d been riding all afternoon, not to mention the Eric Northman Express, left me drained of energy and I wiped the tears from my eyes while attempting to lighten the mood by smiling and said, “My boobs will get bigger too.”

Eric smiled in return and buried his face in between them, muffling his words as he said, “I’m sure I’ll manage just fine.”

After hearing his heartfelt words, I was sure we’d BOTH manage just fine.