Chapter Twenty-One – Clueless

SPOV

The whole way there I kept waiting for the punch line. Kept waiting for him to pull the rug out from under my feet. Waiting for him to rip me out of the car and tie me to some railroad tracks with a train barreling towards me while he twirled his invisible mustache between two fingers and let out a dastardly laugh, saying, “Gotcha!”

But he didn’t.

And yet he did.

Instead of being bound to railroad tracks, I was wrapped up in and around a vampire with the truth of what happened between us barreling down. The truth of who I was.

The reigning Miss Louisiana Liar Liar Pants on Fire.

I knew I should stop myself from hugging him back. But I was too tired and his arms were exactly where I wanted to be. I knew it was wrong. If he really had lost his memories then this Eric couldn’t be held accountable for his hugs. It wasn’t fair.

To either one of us.

But why did he have to be so sweet?

It wasn’t surprising, really. Affection and attraction were never a problem between the two of us.

Secrets were.

So maybe I was dreaming?

That made more sense than the last hour did. The drugs they’d given me at the hospital made me loopy on a good day, but I was afraid to find out. Selfishly I wanted to enjoy it while it lasted because I knew one way or the other it wouldn’t. It couldn’t.

I just wasn’t that lucky.

His arms felt real. As did the comfort I felt from being in them again.

‘His third arm feels real too!’

Ugh.

Fucking Betty.

Figuring I might as well get it over with, I tested my theory in the most scientific way my tired mind could conjure.

He flinched under my fingertips and asked, “Why did you pinch me?”

“Sorry…just checking,” I apologized.

Again.

Before I could get too comfortable – and before I could force myself to blurt out my dissertation on how I’d done him wrong yet again – I pushed him away and said, “We need to figure out what happened to you.”

As soon as the words left my lips a thought popped into my head and I went in search of a phone. Finding one in a giant great room, I plopped down on a couch and pressed *67 to block the number I was calling from before dialing another number from memory.

“Northman Enterprises,” greeted the familiar voice. “Mr. Northman’s office. This is Jake Purifoy. How may I assist you?”

Mr. Fuckity Fuck?

Is that you?

He sounded so polite. Pleasant even. So…normal and since I had already donned my invisible lab coat for the night, I decided to conduct another experiment and spoke up, saying, “This is Sookie Stackhouse. I’d like to speak to Mr. Northman.”

“I’m sure you would,” he scoffed.

Eureka. It was Mr. Fuckity Fuck after all.

“Where is he?” I pressed, wishing my telepathy worked telephonically as well.

Instead of Ma Bell, I could be Ma Tell.

“That is none of your business,” he taunted. “You are no longer employed by Northman Enterprises and his whereabouts are on a need to know basis. You don’t need to know.”

Asshole.

But my gift had given me insight into a few other things I didn’t need to know either.

Like Mr. Fuckity Fuck’s penchant for online gambling.

He was smart enough to not do it from work or home. Instead he kept his growing addiction hidden by using the free WiFi at a local coffee shop on his iPad so it couldn’t be traced back to him. Gambling of any kind was a huge no-no for employees. It was no wonder considering the temptation to be had when working at a casino.

It would be like putting Maxine Fortenberry in the priest’s seat inside of the confessional.

God help us all.

Of course I hadn’t said anything about it before, but now I took great pleasure in taunting back, “Pay attention you egotistical piece of shit fuckity fuck. You will tell me exactly where he is right now or I will tell him exactly what it is you do when you run out for a cup a Joe. Caffeine isn’t your addiction. Playing the ponies is. Now be a good boy Jake and tell me what I want to know before I give him a reason to put your iPad up your ass.”

I had let my eyes close to rest them for a bit while I verbally bashed my arch nemesis. Multitasking was my forte, but I felt when the cushion dipped as Eric took a seat beside me. Too close, really, considering I tipped into him.

I stayed there anyway.

After a long moment of silence, I quietly heard through the receiver, “How…how did you know?”

Remembering his nasty thoughts, I said, “My tits aren’t my only asset.”

Asshole.

“They are very nice though.”

My eyes darted to Eric with me trying to shush his whispered words with nothing more than a look.

It was a wasted effort since he wasn’t looking at my eyes.

At least some things were still the same.

Finally, he said, “I don’t know where he is. Earlier this evening he had me clear his schedule for the next month and told me he would be back whenever he felt like it. I was only to call him if it was a dire emergency. Dire enough that if he deemed it wasn’t an emergency, I would be in dire need of medical attention. I don’t care what you know. I’m not calling him for you.”

He hung up without waiting for a reply and I could almost picture him taking off in search of free WiFi to delete his online account. I didn’t care. I had bigger problems to worry about.

Like the finger I could feel tracing the underside of my breasts.

“Inappropriate!” I chastised and batted it away, while my body screamed for more.

At least I had a whole month of potential inappropriateness to enjoy before anyone came looking for him.

“Is it?” he softly asked. Completely unconcerned with what I had just learned from the fuckity fuck, he said, “I can feel everything you feel. You desire me. You feel affection for me. And yet you feel overwhelming sadness every time you look at me. I am sorry for whatever I have done to cause you this pain. To make you refuse to be mine, but I will make amends. I swear it.”

Hearing where his train of thought had derailed him to, I blurted out, “Eric…no!”

My reply was automatic, but it only seemed to make him feel worse.

Just like the reminder that he could feel everything I felt made me feel worse.

And he was right. I couldn’t look at him for very long without feeling crushed, so I turned towards him and tried to find the words. Words I had already spoken once before in this very house. It would be so easy to gloss over the particulars now that he couldn’t remember, but I wouldn’t – couldn’t – lie to him again.

I learned my lesson the first time.

Feeling like a cliché even as the words left my lips, I explained, “It’s not you. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s me. It was my fault.”

He sat there hanging on my every word. Not that I had said many by that point, but he seemed content to just listen, so I explained it all. How we came to meet and why. How our relationship had gone from zero to sixty, only for it to come crashing to a halt.

Because unlike my near miss with the telephone pole, the pileup of lies between us was unavoidable.

I laid it all out. Left nothing out. From the first time I had ever heard his name until I saw him again for the first time earlier that night. The sad thing was I was able to summarize our entire history into a fifteen minute soliloquy.

Just like our relationship, it was over in the blink of an eye.

“I do not understand,” he finally offered when it was apparent I was done talking.

“Which part?”

I knew I had been talking fast, but that had been a defense mechanism.

Rip the scab off quick and get it over with was my new mantra.

“Why we are not together,” he replied.

Still feeling the burn, I knew there was a little more of the scab I could pick at, so I bit the bullet and clarified, “Eric, I betrayed you. I lied to you. I didn’t tell you my true purpose for taking the job as your personal assistant.” Admitting the truth to both of us, I ended with a matter of fact, “You hate me for it.”

It hurt, sure, but I’d already accepted it. Knowing it was all new to him I braced myself for a second wave of his wrath and hoped he wouldn’t kick me out. I didn’t want to leave him alone. Not when he was so vulnerable. Learning we had at least a few weeks to work with had been a godsend, but I had no idea of where he’d planned on going for a month. No idea if anyone else would be looking for him, but I knew it wasn’t like him. The FBI had been keeping tabs on him for a while and the longest he’d been out of sight was for the two weeks prior to my interview. I’d had no reason to ask where he’d been at the time and now he’d have no memory of it. But since I was already down, my bitchy brain decided to fill in the blanks and taunt me with my brother’s mantra.

The best way to get over a girl is to get under a new one.

Fucking Jason…

I let myself wallow for a good five seconds before I mentally kicked my own ass. Whatever he chose to do was none of my business.

It was my newest mantra.

My only concern should be with setting him to rights. Somehow. So I pulled on my Sara Sidle hat and decided to CSI our way to solving the mystery by going over the evidence.

He’d lost his memory.

That’s it. That’s all I had.

My primetime debut into crime drama officially sucked.

I had no idea of what ailments vampires were susceptible to. All I had was folklore as my guide and while I suspected some of it might be based on truth, what I really needed was a VampMD page I could peruse. In humans, I knew something like that normally occurred after suffering a trauma. But after watching the bullet hole magically heal in Callaghan’s chest, I suspected his memory loss was more likely due to something supernatural and not a bump on his head.

Or was it?

Sitting down was only feeding my desire to fall asleep and since I’d already switched channels from sappy Lifetime dramas to crime shows, I’d forgotten what we had just been talking about when he argued, “I don’t hate you. I lo…mmph”

My hand had already been on its way to do a cursory check of the back of his head, so it was easy to transform my Nurse Nightingale impulse into a proverbial monkey and slap it over his mouth instead as I pleaded, “Don’t!”

Speak any evil.

His words would leave a fatal wound, I was sure.

He didn’t argue. He didn’t protest. In fact, he let me play out the third part of our two-man Evil monkey act without a peep and if my heart hadn’t lodged in my throat, I may have been able to chuckle at the ridiculousness of it.

As it was, we were already playing hot potato with my heart.

But it seemed this Eric was just as hell bent on being a consummate winner as the old Eric was. My poor ticker had just barely eased down my esophagus when without warning he licked my palm.

But I felt it way lower than that.

And Betty suddenly belted out the lyrics to ‘Feed me’ while the Audrey II smacked her gums looking for fresh meat in the Little Shop of Horrors now open for business in my panties.

So I snatched my hand back and used both of them to try and muffle the Broadway tune coming from my muff.

“Lover?” he asked after a moment. “Why do you hide yourself from me?”

Not me.

I was hiding Betty from him.

But it was for his own good.

Couldn’t he hear the lyrics? She was a predator. Just ask Seymour.

I kept my mouth shut though, afraid the second chorus sounding off from my alien Eric Fly Trap would pour through my upper lips too. I was too tired to care that I looked like an idiot. An idiot with a raging case of crotch rot considering my hands were clamped down on Betty like she was the last box of Twinkies at a stoners’ convention.

Funnily enough, Eric looked a bit stoned when I watched as he inhaled deeply. Letting his eyes close for a moment they opened again and stabbed right through my hands and straight into my fly trap, as he hoarsely said, “You desire me. Not only can I feel it. I can smell it.”

Oh. Mah. Guh!

“Well that’s just…just…” I wracked my sleepy brain, searching for something other than ‘Nuh uh!’ when I hit pay dirt and huffed, “Invasive! And intrusive! And…and…intrusively invasive!”

Fuck it. I was bushed and being forced to talk about my bush threw me off my game. But that didn’t mean precedent over pussy privacy protection wouldn’t be petitioned.

My former lawyer wannabe persona would never let it go unsaid.

And because I was fresh out of biohazard suits to put Betty in a bubble, I added a throw pillow to the invisible line I’d drawn in the scented sand over her odoriferous self while trying to remember if I’d ever tried to sneak a fart past him.

If I had, sunshine and honey would’ve been the furthest things from his mind.

He ripped the thought of ripping anything in his presence right out of me by ripping the pillow from between my legs. The next thing I knew I was sprawled out underneath him with his body planted firmly in its place.

Just like the good old days.

Gone was the somewhat timid memory-less Eric, replaced by a more confident replica of him. But he wasn’t quite the same as before.

His swagger had been replaced by sincerity.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

“So,” he calmly began, like his zeppelin wasn’t knock knock knockin’ on heaven’s door. “From what you have told me, our distance was due in part to your previous misrepresentation. Not from anything I have done?”

“In a nutshell,” I replied breathily.

Breathily because his nuts were trying to lodge themselves in my shell.

“Good,” he smiled and then buried his face in my neck.

Was that a question? A statement?

Either or the answer was the same.

Oh yeah it was…

And I was getting way too comfortable reliving our glory days of last week, so I pushed at his shoulders until he finally sat up enough to look at me. I assumed he felt my intention to pull the plug on our snuggle reunion because he declared, “I am not upset with you lover. You were in an impossible position. I am sure you would have told me the truth eventually.”

Stupid amnesiac vampire. Why couldn’t it be the Eric with all of his memories telling me that?

“You might forgive me, but the you with your memories doesn’t,” I smiled sadly.

“How do you know?” he argued. “I may have very well been on my way to see you when I lost my memories. It would explain why I was able to reach you so quickly.”

Aww…he had pipe dreams too.

It was nice to know we could still be matchy matchy.

But the only way I would believe that would be if he had been on his way to disappear me.

Back when he would’ve known what ‘sleeping with the fishes’ meant.

“Because,” I volleyed back, “you said it yourself. You can feel my every emotion.”

Never mind what he could smell.

Covering my heart in an invisible lead blanket to lessen the danger of the radiation I was about to hit myself with by x-raying my insides, I admitted, “That night…seeing how much I hurt you, just about killed me. I fell for you hard and fast. And while my reason for being there was a lie, my feelings for you were real. You would’ve felt how sorry I was that night. You would’ve felt how much I truly cared about you and would’ve known how much it hurt for me to say goodbye. A sentiment you didn’t even bother to return. You left me there without a word. You stayed away and even had my things packed and sent to the hospital so I wouldn’t have a reason to go back to your casino. Eric, you might forgive me, but the real you still hates me.”

It was a hard truth, but I’d had enough of the lies.

Even ones to myself.

“Then I was a fool.”

His lips were on mine a second later and I was powerless against him. Not that I tried to resist. Even with a full night’s sleep and minus a concussion I wouldn’t have the wherewithal to say no to his kisses.

He certainly hadn’t forgotten how.

So I let myself enjoy it. I told myself it was okay and I could just consider this the kiss goodbye I’d been shortchanged from having before. It lasted longer than it should have. And I let it until I knew we were in danger of me letting his pipe make my dreams come true, so I forced myself to push him away yet again and said, “I’ll stay. I’ll help you figure out what happened to make you lose your memories, but this – you and me – we can’t. I would feel like I was betraying you all over again. The real you wouldn’t want this.”

Me.

“If it means I will not have you, then I do not want my memories to return.”

Even without the benefit of being able to read his mind or feel his emotions, I knew he was speaking from the heart. My eyes darted around looking for John Quinones, feeling like I was on an episode of Dateline’s ‘What would you do?’ Hidden cameras were probably zeroed in on me while a pile of Eric Northman was laid right at my feet with no one else around. I could pick him up and keep him. Keep someone I had no right to and hadn’t earned. Or I could do the right thing and return him back to himself.

‘Keep him!’ Betty pleaded.

But I ignored her.

Her ass needed to be on the lookout for Chris Hansen because she would be primetime gold on ‘To catch a predator’.

Seeing Eric was still waiting on me to say something, I smiled and conceded, “I can’t take your life away from you Eric. You worked very hard to get to where you’re at and there are a lot of people who depend on you for their livelihoods. It wouldn’t be fair to them or you for me to keep you.” He opened his mouth to argue, so I held up my hand to stop him and added, “But, maybe when you get your memories back, me helping you now might help you to change your mind about me then.”

And despite my will not to, hope flared inside of me once again.

“I feel that,” he reminded me. His soft smile and sultry eyes made something else flare inside of me.

So I pushed him off knowing he could feel that too.

Figuring we should get down to business knowing sunrise couldn’t be that far off, I asked, “What do you know about being a vampire? You didn’t tell me anything before, but I know you never came out during the daytime.”

He sat there with a look I couldn’t quite decipher, but he eventually said, “Sunlight would burn me. I would need to seek shelter before daybreak. Sunrise is less than two hours away.”

It reminded me of old Sheriff Dearborn back home. He always knew when it was going to rain because of the dull ache in his knees.

It made me snicker inside over the thought of Eric being Sheriff.

“Alright then,” I said as I stood up. He was still looking at me like I was a juicy steak and while I wasn’t frightened of him, I knew it wouldn’t take much for me douse myself in some A1 steak sauce and say, ‘Come and get it.’

According to him he could already smell the A1 coating my panties.

I hadn’t noticed much the only other time I had been in his home, but I knew we’d come out of his underground lair and ended up in the library.

Sans Colonel Mustard or a candlestick.

And we were still just as clueless.

I led the way there with him right behind me until I came to a stop at a large bookcase and asked, “Does any of it look familiar?”

“No.”

Pointing to the rows of books in front of us, I said, “Well this wall is where we came out of, so I assume there’s a hidden way to get in. Put your super sniffer to work and see what smells like you the most. Wherever you touched must be hooked up to the latch. I’ll go check out the other rooms to look for one without windows in case you can’t find it before sunrise.”

Feeling like I had a purpose again was good, but I had to force my feet to walk away before I ended up collapsing where I stood. With my adrenaline gone, the long night was catching up with me and I knew it was only a matter of time before I would pass out. I was the walking dead as it was.

Shit…were zombies real too?

I quickly decided I didn’t want to know because I’d never sleep again.

The house was huge, but I already knew that from the outside alone. It met both the fancy and schmancy tick marks and many a cow had met their demise in his quest for well-appointed conversational chairs. I had no idea of how long he’d owned it, but the quick cursory glances made me believe it couldn’t have been for very long. The house didn’t look lived in at all and instead was more like a showcase model for a cookie cutter development of McMansions that would never be built. Thankfully the closets were just as huge, so at least he could take shelter in one of them if we couldn’t figure out how to get in to his man cave below.

Knowing I would likely be staying there for a while too, instead of returning to the library I headed outside to get some of my things from my car, after a quick check of the lawn told me there weren’t any zombies waiting to eat my brain.

It was probably just as rank as Betty anyway.

A shower sounded good and I wanted fresh clothes to go along with it, but my weary body got another kick start when I turned from the trunk with an armful of bags and ran right into a naked chest I wouldn’t soon forget.

“Eric!” I yelled. “You scared the shit out of me!”

I felt my skin redden and turn hot watching him inhale deeply just as he said, “No I did not.”

Stupid stealthy literal vampire bloodhound!

But it reminded me just how much I didn’t know about him and my brain mouth filter was shut down for the foreseeable future, so my mouth asked, “Do vampires shit?”

“No,” he grinned.

Lucky. That would doubly suck with a super sniffer.

It also told me I’d likely have to go shopping soon. I doubted he had toilet paper.

Instead of getting caught up in all of the things he would be able to smell, I shoved my armful into his arms and grabbed another load before leading him back into the house. But I stopped short when I heard him say, “I am sorry I frightened you. I thought you were leaving.”

“Why would you think that?” I asked. “I told you I would stay until you’re better.”

“I do not deserve your kindness. Not after the way you said I had treated you.”

The storm had yet to die down so I made my feet move again, but he looked so sad that by the time we reached the foyer I dropped my stuff just inside of the door and hugged him, saying, “Honestly, I think I deserved the way you treated me, but if it makes you feel any better, I forgive you.”

And maybe when he could remember again, he would forgive me too.

“I do not like feeling your sadness,” he whispered. His arms hugged me tighter with his voice taking on a hardened edge as he said, “You will stop.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” I teased. “You fired me, remember?”

Pulling back, he looked down at me and deadpanned, “No.”

And just like that I wasn’t sad anymore.

I chuckled and pushed him away, saying, “Feel free to call Fuckity Fuck to verify my claim, but for now I need a shower and so do you.” I didn’t smell any fish on him, but he was dirty.

And not in the way I had come to expect from him.

Seeing the hopeful look in his eyes, I quickly clarified, “Alone. We each need to take a shower, alone.”

Visions of colliding hips swam before my eyes, so I shook them free and asked, “Did you figure out how to get into your bat cave?”

His eyebrows furrowed as he said, “Yes, but there were no bats.”

I was already missing our playful banter. This Eric couldn’t serenade me with Copacabana, but every now and again I got glimpses of the man behind the amnesia. He was nearly as handsy as his former self and his sense of humor was still there.

Or maybe I just found his literalness amusing.

Deciding to dangle some bait at He Who Says He Smells Like Fish, I asked completely stone faced, “What about zombies?”

“Just one,” he replied without missing a beat and just as seriously. “Sadly, his jaw has dislodged with decay and he can no longer speak. He either attempted to convey his name in sign language or he takes great umbrage with my mother, but it was difficult to tell which when his digits fell off one by one. Is he the James Bond I have the bromance with you spoke of?”

Oh…Mah…Guh…

His lips curved into a small smile and mine followed suit. Because despite whatever fuckery was afoot, it felt like I’d just gotten a piece of him back.

He smiled wider hearing my giggle and scooped up all of my bags as I followed him back into the library. The bookcase was swung open, with the hidden stairs I remembered leading down into the underground section of the house now in view. It must have cost a small fortune considering how high the water table was in Louisiana, but it would have been rude to ask whether he could remember or not, so I didn’t say anything and just followed him.

The room I had been in was near the entryway into the underground space, so I hadn’t seen much more than the stairs the first time I had been there. He stopped at the doorway to what had been ‘my room’ and looked down at me sadly, saying, “It reeks of your blood. You were gravely injured.”

“And you healed me,” I reminded him, not dwelling on it. Instead I pulled my bags from his arms and dropped them on the floor before pushing past him and continuing on down the hallway that opened up into a giant living area. This space looked lived in, unlike the upstairs, and I let my eyes travel over everything.

“Does anything feel familiar?” I asked as I slowly walked around the room.

I probably could’ve sprinted and gotten just as far.

Because I was suddenly engulfed by six and a half feet of vampire.

“You.”

My eyes noted the medieval looking swords hanging on one wall and I wondered if he had a chastity belt in his collection.

I had a feeling I was going to need it.

Struggling to find something to say that had nothing to do with anything either one of us were feeling – or smelling – I asked, “How long until sunrise?”

“Sixty-seven minutes,” answered the giant Rainman at my back.

It made me wonder if Judge Wapner was still alive.

His mouth was skimming along my neck and since it felt like my brain had enough thinking for one night, I didn’t try to stop my head from tilting to give him better access.

Because I was an exhausted glutton for punishment.

And in keeping with that theme and remembering his earlier request, I asked, “Are you hungry?”

It hadn’t physically hurt the one and only time he had bit me. Emotionally, it hurt like a mother fucker, but current circumstances were different now.

And our current circumstances meant I would have to keep on my toes lest I end up on my back underneath him.

Or pinned against a wall.

“I should not,” he argued. “I do not deserve you.”

“Well it’s not like you can run to the nearest Jack In the Box to get a blood to go.”

‘But we can have an Eric in our box!’

I shouldn’t have been surprised at who was still wide awake.

Since he could feel me, maybe they could just talk amongst themselves while I took a nap.

Betty was all for that idea and started playing a lullaby to knock my ass out.

Eric wasn’t privy to our silent slumber party and asked, “Are you sure?”

That Betty wants to have a slumber party with you?

Absolutely.

Maybe he felt my silent agreement because his fangs made another pass over my neck and I shivered from the sensation, but my brain was still functioning on some level because I asked, “You’ll uh…be able to stop, right?”

I’d seen the medical examiners’ reports and knew bodies could be drained.

I just didn’t want to be one of them.

I heard another ‘snick’ just before he spun me around so I could see his fangs had disappeared while he declared, “I would never hurt you.”

But you already have.

Self-inflicted emotional warfare was a bitch and I knew it was unfair the moment the thought flitted through my mind. But his annoying Sookie-dar must have felt it anyway because he let go of me and took a step back saying, “You do not believe me.”

“Stop that,” I ordered and took a step forward. “I’m just tired. It’s been a long night, but I know you won’t hurt me.” Taking his hand in mine, I attempted to pull him towards a couch as I said, “If you were going to drain me, you would have done it by now.”

But it did me no good. My words or my pulling. He didn’t budge.

Stupid stubborn sturdy vampire!

My ire rose up along with my voice as I snarled, “Eric! You sit your ass down on that couch right now and bite me!”

“No,” he sulked and crossed his arms over his chest.

Seriously?

I couldn’t force him, but I could use emotional warfare against him. Crossing my own arms across my chest, pushing the girls up more than necessary, I glared back at him and said, “You nearly refused the only other time you bit me too. Am I that repulsive to you?”

Snick.

I bit back my grin over hearing the sound. Angry. Turned on. I didn’t care about the cause for them to snap down.

Pumpkin time was less than sixty-seven minutes away and I already learned I couldn’t rely on my fairy godmother to help a girl out.

I’d never get his heavy ass into bed all by myself.

He still hadn’t moved a muscle. Well, one muscle of his was moving in my peripheral vision, but I refused to let my eyes trail down his body to acknowledge it.

Sixty-seven minutes was more than enough time for me to get acquainted with his magic wand.

So, like any tired and bitchy woman worth her salt, I planted my feet and pushed him. I heaved and I hoed. I cursed and I begged. His pout slowly turned into amusement, but eventually he caved and let me push him down on the couch. I took a seat next to him and tilted my head, but all he did was stare.

Or more like goad.

Refusing to lose, while ignoring the irony that I was forcing a vampire to feed on me, I took a page from the Eric Northman of yesterweek and straddled his lap. I knew, among other things, feeding on me had turned on Callaghan and I suspected the same would be true of Eric. I told myself I wasn’t betraying YesterEric by teasing Current Eric’s body.

Not really.

A vamp had to eat, right?

And if Betty happened to agree with the extreme measures I took, then at least maybe she would shut the hell up and let me get some sleep soon.

I took his hands and placed each one on my ass. Moving him like a toy as I toyed with his body. Shaking not quite hands with his third arm, I looked into his eyes and whispered, “Bite me.”

His look of amusement had faded away by then and was replaced by hunger.

And I had a feeling he wasn’t just hungry for blood.

After all, I could feel ‘it’ poking around my pumpkin patch.

“Make me,” he dared.

Betty immediately picked up what he was putting down and forced my hips to do a figure eight over his Erink, covering us both when she came to a stop with the spray of not quite ice.

It was wet though.

But not cold. Not cold at all.

Maybe it was my exhaustion.

Maybe it was gravity.

Maybe it was because I had all of the willpower of an Augustus Gloop and the river of chocolate was just too tempting, but my Wonka wanted his Willy.

Just like my world from the moment we had met, my body tilted. Leaning forward, my lips took his own. And as soon as I sliced my tongue on his teeth, the whole world seemed to fall away.

I could only hope a passing double-O zombie or Oompa Loompa would be able to pull me back before I gladly let myself drown in him.