Pantoufle en Verre

Part 2 of 2

I frowned at Bill, who bent his head to brush his lips against my temple. He drew his head back with a mild growl. I raised an eyebrow at him, standing back slightly to look him in the eye.

"What?" I asked. "Don't you like my perfume?"

"You smell like Eric," Bill growled again, his voice low and distant and very clearly pissed off.

"Oh for goodness sakes!" I dropped my arms from Bill's shoulders and stood back a step. "We were only dancing! It was completely harmless!" Bill yanked me back against him, maybe a little harder than was actually necessary. He turned me around on the floor so that he could glare at Eric over my head. I pouted a little. Now I couldn't stare at his backside anymore. Damn!

"Nothing with Eric is completely harmless, Sookie," Bill muttered near my ear. He pulled me closer to him, and I could feel his aggression turn into a very familiar desire to erase Eric's scent from me. This possessive thing was just ridiculous. Stupid vampires!

With all the strength I could muster, I pushed Bill away. He didn't move much, but the effect was still there. He dropped back again and focused in on me. Sometimes it's hard to know what Bill's feeling, but other times? I mean, you could never mistake that look. That look said "Sookie is mine. Touch her and I'll kill you!" And boy was it irritating. I mean, sure, Eric was nice to look at (oh boy was he!), and he was a great dancer, but I was Bill's date. Or at least, I had been.

"I know you're a vampire and you're about as territorial as they come, but I am NOT some little woman that you can just…just…" What was I trying to say here? Oh yeah. I'm not his bitch. "I'm not your bitch!"

"Sookie!" Bill stared at me, horrified. Oh yeah, Bill the Southern Gentleman. Well wake up and smell the 21st century, honey!

"Take your hands off me!" I squeaked at him. I was losing my own composure. There were eyes on us. I was certain two of those eyes belonged to a certain Viking. Bill's hands fell to his sides like rocks dropped from a roof top. "Now! I'm going to go get a…a drink. When you've regained some kind of self-control, you're free to join me!"

And with that, I stalked out of the ballroom.

As soon as I was out of the room though, I clutched the concierge desk to keep from toppling over. I bet you Cinderella never yelled at the prince in front of a room full of his peers. Oh hell, Sookie, what have you gone and done now? I could feel someone staring at me and I whirled around, my clutch raised like a weapon. Never sneak up on a girl in a bad mood. Eric was standing behind me. I couldn't tell what he was thinking. His mouth was straight-lipped. His eyes were dark. Oh crap, he looked unhappy. I dropped my arm.

"Eric," I said quietly. I fell into a chair near the desk. Eric sat down opposite me.

"You fought with Bill," Eric said with a tone in his voice I didn't really recognize.

"He was getting on my nerves." I said. Hm, maybe I shouldn't share with Eric. Bill would be really pissed. I paused. Oh fuck Bill and the horse he rode in on!

"He's right to be possessive of you, Sookie. I would be, if I were in his place." Eric was calm and matter of fact, but he still didn't smile.

"We didn't do anything wrong! We were just dancing!" I exclaimed, my voice hitting that squeaky pitch again. I looked at Eric. He really was a thing of beauty. I imagined his arms around my waist again, rocking me to the music. Eric was far more powerful than Bill. He wouldn't feel the need to be so clingy with our relationship, would he? I mean, if we had a relationship.

"Admittedly, I was thinking about more than dancing, Sookie." For a moment, his eyes glittered. Then they darkened again. I felt my cheeks warm up, and I struggled not to blush. But now I wanted to know what Eric was thinking about while we'd danced. He'd been aroused. By the way he was sitting, I could tell he was no longer in that same state. What a waste. "If Bill did not possess you, I would take you for myself."

Oh yes, take me!

And then: good grief, Sookie! You have a boyfriend!

"I'm his," I said quietly, "but only because he told me that it was the only way he could protect me. I'm not his dog. I'm my own person."

"Yes. Your desire for independence is remarkable and intriguing," Eric said. Was that a compliment? I had no idea.

Eric got to his feet and held out his hand to me. I took it without thinking twice about what Bill might think.

"Come," he said. "Bill will wish to apologize to you and to erase my scent from your skin." The way he said that last part, I wanted to jump his bones right there in the middle of the room. He looked at me, giving me a full-body stare before he ushered me back into the room alone. Bill was standing a foot or so inside the door and off to one side. He took my arm and pulled me close. I could see the hurt in his eyes.

"Sookie," he said. His voice was full of regret. "I apologize. I know you had no intention of betraying me with Eric." Well, that was partially true. I didn't want to do the things that were running around in my brain. Well, maybe just a little.

"Bill," I sighed. "I love you. You have to trust me."

"I do trust you." He kissed my forehead, then my lips. A surge of ache went through me.

"Dance with me?" I asked him. He nodded and we walked back onto the dance floor.

We danced to two ballads and a melodious waltz. Bill was a dancer as well, though perhaps not quite as graceful as Eric. Dances had changed a great deal since Bill had been alive, and maybe he hadn't actually done so much dancing in recent years. He waltzed beautifully though, gliding me around the room so that my skirt flared up around my hips. I wanted to quote Scarlett O'Hara to him ("You do waltz divinely, Captain Butler!"), but I didn't think he'd quite get the reference. Bill didn't strike me as the kind of guy that enjoyed movies, particularly movies about a time in which he was alive.

The band was starting up again on another song when there was a loud banging noise. Our heads turned with every head in the room to watch three big, burly men tumble into the room. They weren't vampires. They looked like Weres, really big Weres. I blinked and Bill pulled me against him. For once, I didn't mind his protective nature.

"Where's the Northman?" One of the men growled in a way that cut through my skin and rumbled my heart. I grasped Bill's arm and held on tightly. We watched Eric glide over to the men calmly. I couldn't hear him speak, but I guessed Bill could. I watched the muscles in his shoulders ripple. He tossed his head and his braid fell from his shoulder and slid down his spine. Though Bill was holding me, and I valued his presence, I wished their roles were reversed. I wished I were huddled against Eric's chest.

"We need to go," Bill whispered near my ear. I nodded discreetly. He picked me up off the ground to make a fast exit faster. I watched with eyeballs like saucers as one of the large men changed before my very eyes. There was a weird sound, like a sloppy stew stirred in an enormous pot, and the man's features transformed into those of a very large, very imposing, very magical wolf. I inhaled loudly and grasped Bill tighter.

"What about Eric?" I hissed under my breath. Bill was looking for another exit. We couldn't go out the way we'd come in.

"He'll be fine." Bill said dismissively.

"My purse!" I squeaked suddenly. I'd left it on the table in the reception area when I'd sat down with Eric.

"We'll come back for it, Sookie." Bill grunted. He'd found a way out. We were moving speedily toward the door. My hair actually flew out behind me like a curtain. I turned my head to watch as Eric took on the werewolf, his arms so muscular and incredibly strong. There was a whimpering noise. Those arms had held me only an hour ago.

"What was going on?" I asked Bill quietly as we drove home. Good thing I had an extra key under my doormat. I was worried about my wallet though…

"I don't know. Eric has many enemies." Bill said through tight lips. "He is a powerful man."

"Oh." Well okay then. We sat in silence for several miles. I stared out the window. I thought about what Eric might do to the werewolf intruders. My skin crawled just imagining it.

"You still smell of him," Bill said as we drove into Renard Parish and took the turn toward our own little corner of Bon Temps.

"Don't start," I frowned. But something in his voice made me turn and look at him. His brown eyes seemed to light up the car and I knew what he had on his mind.

"Soon, you'll smell only of me." His fangs had dropped down. The car screeched to a halt, though we were still a good quarter mile away from the farmhouse.

"We're almost home," I frowned at him. But Bill only shook his head. He got out of the car. He was around my side in a flash and he yanked me out too. His mouth pressed against my throat and he lifted me up off the ground and pressed me against the passenger side back door.

"Bill," I whispered hoarsely, but his pants were already off and hanging around his ankles. He pulled at the lace panties I'd worn and tossed them on the hood of his car. I gasped loudly and suddenly as he entered me without even giving me a chance to warm up first.

And then Eric popped into my brain. Eric was caressing my skin, massaging my breast, taking the time to undress me. He placed kisses on the insides of my thighs, stroked my little triangle of flesh, teased me until I begged him to stop. His long tresses brushed my nose and lips as he bent to kiss my lips. He filled me up so completely that I had to bite back the pain, and he was careful to let me adjust to the sensation of him.

Bill bit into my skin ferociously as he came, tearing me out of my fantasy and bringing me startlingly back to earth. I dug my fingers into his shoulders and trembled. He let me down on the ground and helped me back into the car. I whimpered quietly, and Bill's hand reached over to stroke my thigh as we continued driving to the house. Parked on the rutted gravel driveway, Bill swung around the car again and lifted me up to take me inside. He got the key out from under the mat and unlocked the door. Then he slammed it behind him.

"He's all over you," Bill growled.

"Don't tear the dress," I begged him. It was the only request I could get in before he'd disrobed me and carried on the way he had only a few minutes before. The experience left me feeling…used. But I didn't want it to end.

When Bill thrust inside of me for the second time that night, my thoughts went sailing back to Eric. His muscular arms scooped me up and tossed me over the arm of my sofa. I leaned back on the cushions with my hips up in the air and he entered me. I whined with a spasm of pain and a thousand pounds of pure pleasure. He was gentle but firm, pulling my hips against his over and over again. His long hair fell down into his eyes and he groaned and growled underneath that blond veil. My moans, I'm certain, escaped the parameters of my fantasy which only enlivened the Bill in my reality, the Eric in my fantasy. I could feel my climax. I was swimming in desire.

I dug my hands into Bill's arm and tore at his skin with my fingernails. Eric was staring down at me with those smoldering, fiery blue eyes. I threw my head back and groaned, my voice hitting a new octave. Eric Eric Eric Eric. Oh God Eric!

"Bill!" I cried, straining to remember where I was, and, more importantly, who I was with. Bill collapsed on top of me. I hadn't even realized we were lying on the floor.

The night carried on in much the same fashion, with Bill initiating four or five more intervals (until I literally begged him for mercy). I imagined my way through every one. Bill was rough, as Bill often was when competing with Eric. This just happened to be the first time that Bill actually had competition, even if it was only in my head. He left just before dawn to return to his own home, his own hidey hole. And I closed my eyes. It was a dreamless sleep, and I tossed and turned for much of it.

When I woke up late in the evening, I was in agony. I wanted to crawl into the bath and sink under a mountain of heavenly scented bubbles, but there was a knock at the door. I put on a robe and slumped to the door. Did I look as overworked and underpaid as I felt? I opened the door with a mild groan. Then I noticed who was standing there.

"Eric," I blinked. Wow, the vampire of my fantasies was standing on my porch and I looked like death served lukewarm. He frowned at me, and I mean really frowned.

"Sookie, are you okay?" He looked genuinely concerned (was that possible?).

"Yeah, I…I think I'm coming down with something." I lied.

"Then I will make my visit a brief one," Eric said.

"Oh. Oh, come in," I said. Wow. I was forgetting my manners. Not a good thing, Sookie, not even when you look and feel like something thrown up on your favorite blouse. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"No, no. I'm fine." Eric shook his head. His hair was loose and it drifted around his head in a wave. I tried not to stare. "I wanted to apologize for the fight last night."

"That wasn't your fault," I protested, though honestly I didn't know what had happened.

"Regardless, I had hoped you would enjoy the remainder of your evening with Bill, and you did not get the opportunity."

I thought about throwing in a snide remark, but my sex life with Bill wasn't really up for discussion. Some things should be kept private.

"I appreciate the thought," I said instead.

"You left this behind at the hotel." Eric set my black clutch on the table.

Oh I could have hugged him! In fact, screw it, I would. I got up out of the chair I'd slumped into and I threw my arms around Eric. My whole body ached, and I might have flinched a little when Eric, rather unexpectedly, drew me against his chest.

"You're hurt," Eric said after a long time of holding me against him with both arms.

"It's nothing." I said without emotion.

"Ah. Bill has erased my scent from you." He said. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, and some part of me really wanted to know.

"That's none of your business." I pulled back from him, reluctantly.

"You're right. It isn't." He touched my face, and oh god how I wanted to sink into his hand. "But if you were mine, Sookie, I would never, ever hurt you."

Then Eric got to his feet. I watched him from my chair. Every inch of me wanted to stop him, to kiss him the way he'd kissed me in Dallas. My aching body longed to spring into his arms, to allow him to possess me. I thought of my fantasies, his hands on my hips, his hair brushing against my cheek. He opened the door and stepped out of it. I looked at my purse sitting on the table. With a hand that I didn't realize was trembling, I opened it.

On top of my wallet and house keys, there was a small card, folded over once. I took it out of the bag and opened it with my thumb. Eric had beautiful, graceful script handwriting. He'd only written one thing inside, and it was unsigned. But obviously, it was from him.

You look ravishing tonight, Sookie.