Title: Forever and a Day

Author: Connecticut Junkie

Rating: R (there is plenty of foul language afoot and some sexual situations)

Summary: "Well then, Ms. Stackhouse, what sort of business are you interested in discussing?"

Takes place after Season 3, but no large spoilers. No season 4 speculation either.

Disclaimer: Not Mine.

Note: Many thanks to everyone who was kind enough to read/review my previous stories; I appreciate it a lot . I had to make a new account because I can't access the old one. If interested, more stuff is here:

.net/u/244018/Connecticut_Junkie

Enjoy! (hopefully)

***
Sookie tried to quell the fluttering low in her belly as she took in all six plus feet of Eric Northman after studiously ignoring his existence for several months. She had been certain that by now his little crush, obsession, whatever, would've been long gone. But that notion started heading south when Pam's eyes had turned into round saucers when Sookie first walked into Fangtasia, and after the nearly minute long smoldering stare Eric gave her from his stupid throne once he spotted her at the entrance, the notion was clearly halfway across Peru and headed for Patagonia.

From that stare she wasn't sure if Eric wanted to fuck her, kill her, or eat her. Or all three, in who knows what order. That Eastern European Cardiologist/Skank Yvetta was nowhere to be seen, but it looked like Pam and Eric had wasted no time replacing her with another skank clone. Excuse me, Sookie thought, Dr. Skank, as the Skank shook her plastic boob sacks in Eric's face in a lame ploy for attention.

It was all too pathetic. Really, someone had to make a move or they would be forced to stare across the room for the rest of the night while Dr. McSkankerton the Second pulled every trick out of her doctor's bag of desperation. So Sookie did the one thing she knew Eric would hate. She put on a great big smile and waved like she had run into Tara at the mall.

Which did make the big bad vampire immediately get up and whisk her away into his office with vampire speed. After all, he had his dumb reputation to live up to.

He closed the office door and leaned on the edge of his desk. "Well, well...it has certainly been a while."

"Not long enough if you ask me," Sookie retorted. She was angry with him, but also with herself. He was even better looking than she remembered.

He raised an eyebrow. "And yet, you are the one who came to me."

Sookie raised both her eyebrows. "Business. Strictly business." She had no intentions of doing anything else with him. In fact, she had come to Fangtasia dressed in her best ratty pair of shoes that she normally only wore for housework, an old pair of shorts, and a Denmark soccer jersey. Or football. Whatever. She was pretty sure Eric the Jackass Northman was Swedish. So it would annoy him just a bit. It was always smart to provoke dangerous things, right?

"Well then, Ms. Stackhouse, what sort of business are you interested in discussing?"

She could just stake him. How could he even make the word 'business' sound dirty?
Sookie sighed. She had put it off as long as possible, but a few heavy rainstorms had turned the hole in her roof that had started out as just a minor Maryann caused problem into a gaping wound of evil. Jason had tried his best, but the whole damn thing needed to be replaced, and the truth was, even working double shifts, there was no way she could make enough money to fix it.

"I need a new roof."

"I have not built anything with my own hands for more than eight hundred years but Id be willing to try. If the price was right."

She knew he was teasing her, and that he was enjoying it. "I need money, to hire a roofing contractor, so they can put a new modern day roof in and not some patch of mud and grass you stole from a goat to make a crude cover on your little wooden shack."

His eyes narrowed. She inwardly rejoiced at her victory. "My people were excellent woodworkers. We did not live in shacks with roofs of goat grass." She wasn't entirely sure, but it sounded like he mumbled something else under his breath. It kind of sounded like 'Bitch,' but maybe it was another language. Whatever. Good. If he constantly irritated her, it more than made up for it when she could return the favor.

"Fine. So...do you have any jobs available for me?"

At this he got up from the desk and stepped closer to her. She steeled herself for a physical advance but instead he sank into the couch and splayed his long legs. Not that she was disappointed he didnt try anything. Nope.

"We need a new dancer."

"As if."

He patted his thigh. "Auditions are starting right now."

"Let me rephrase this. Do you have any telepath jobs for me? I can wait a little bit but eventually my roof is going to cave in and if I'm under it, I might die. And then you wouldn't even be able to scheme about how to steal more blood from me."

Before Sookie knew what was happening he had stood up and used that damn vampire speed to grab her and pull her down to the couch with him. She was on his lap like a child with Santa and it was wrong on so many levels. "How about you run the equivalent of a winery?" He pressed his fingers against the pulse in her neck. "You could charge me by the glass. You would get paid, I would get very, very happy, and everyone wins."

"No. Gross. No." Sookie was emphatic. She could hear Bill's voice battering around in her skull, your blood is the most delicious blood I have ever tasted. Just. No. "I'm not some fucking delicious treat for you all. I am a person."

It sounded self-helpy, even to her own ears.

Eric's arms were like the steel bars in a roller coaster, holding her to his lap. "You are a woman."

"Yes, and Bill did the goddamn Charleston all over my heart and it was all for my stupid blood. So forgive me if I don't want to be treated like the soft-serve machine at Dairy Queen, dispensing yummy treats when you feel peckish."

His hand snaked up her thigh, and right when Sookie was about to smack it away, it slid back down to her knee of its own accord. "If you were my woman, you would not have to worry of such financial matters."

"No thanks. Being a whore isn't really up my alley."

Eric's face turned stony. "I did not say 'my whore.' I said 'my woman.'"

"Is there a difference?"

"Your 'sass' as these hillbillies call it infuriates me sometimes. I swear I should throw you in the swamp and let the gators eat you so I can be free. I have had lovers. I have not had a woman I call my own in many lifetimes. There are others who would kill to be offered what Im offering you."

Sookie harrumphed. That was probably the closest thing she would ever get in the rest of her life to a marriage proposal and declaration of love. How fucking romantic. She sighed. "I just want a roof."

"You want a roof. And you want me. I can feel it."

She squirmed out of his arms and stood up, trying not to notice it was only because he let her. "Yes. Yes, I want you soooo bad."

He stood up and moved closer to her. "I knew it."

"What, they didn't have sarcasm a thousand years ago?"

"Your mouth says one thing. Your blood and your body and your heart scream another. You will yield to me, Sookie. It's not a question of if, but a question of when."

"Half past never," she snapped.

He took another step closer. She had nowhere to escape his advances but out the door, and that was defeating the purpose of coming here. She would be left with nothing to show for it but a yellow badge of cowardice and a stupid hole in her roof.

"I guess we could also consider the question of 'where'? Our first kiss was here. So I am partial to my office. Or maybe youd let me lick your pussy in the stockroom of Merlotte's? Fuck you in Bill's bed? That would be delightful for more reasons than just the obvious one."

Her face felt hot enough to fry an egg. And any blood that hadn't gone to her face had gone south.

He smirked at her, the arrogance making her blood heat up even further. The brush of his finger along her jawbone reminded Sookie of when Gran would pat a cold washcloth on her when she had a fever. It was comforting, familiar, and immediately replaced her anger with a new kind of heat. She hated him for it.

He tilted her chin up so she could see his eyes, which she had been stubbornly refusing to look at as if he was a variant on Medusa. Just one look could make panties disappear. "So, my Sookie, answer me. When?"

She sneered at him. "Never."

Sookie wanted to use her pathetic human strength to push him away, kick him in the shin, and flounce out. But the problem with Eric- the current problem with Eric, because there were many, many problems she had with Eric- was that she had an Achilles' heel and he knew it. His vulnerability would melt her resolve. Every time. And right now the way Eric was looking at her took her right back to a rooftop on Dallas. The iceberg around her heart melted, and she blamed his long fingers as instruments of global warming.

If he had grabbed her ass, she could've slapped him. Forced her into a kiss, she couldve bit his lip (or not, because he would like that). But he held her hand, those long digits of persuasion wrapping around her palm, each finger pressing into her skin and speaking to her. I. Need. You. Sookie.

She scowled and told herself not to listen to his stupid fingers.

His thumb joined in, stroking the thin skin on the back of her hand. Please.

She scowled harder. She had a finger that could say something to him too, although he would be inclined to take it literally.

It felt like forever, Eric standing there trying to plead with his eyes and fingers, her trying to scowl harder than she had ever scowled before so maybe he would get the hint and stop touching her before she gave up and gave in.

He spoke first, with exasperation. She took it as a victory. "Why, Sookie Stackhouse, must you always make it so hard?"

She said the first thing that came to mind, which was stupid, but when it came to Eric it seemed she never did anything smart. "That's what she said."

Bill would have given her a confused look, even though he'd had way more time than she'd had to acquire a sense of humor. But not Eric. He got it. The pleading vulnerability was replaced by a genuine smile. And oh sweet baby buddha, that was a million times more effective as a panty vanisher. Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea, she could practically feel the little bikinis traipsing off to another dimension.

"You want me." His tone said this as an obvious fact, and Sookie didn't try to argue either. It was pointless. It was true. He knew that she knew. Hell, even her idiot panties knew. Everyone knew. So she just nodded. "I want you," he continued, and Sookie had never heard a dry statement of fact that was so raw and primal with need. His fingers had given up on persuading her hand and had moved to the small of her back. She wasn't sure if it was her own doing, but the distance between them closed further, their bodies coming together like Pangea. And Lord have mercy, she could definitely feel something rock hard.

"Yes," she breathed. He smelled so good, like the first crisp winds of winter a Southern girl needs after a summer of heat and sweat.

"It is inevitable," he continued, Professor Northman lecturing his class of one. He rocked his hips against hers, that large hand pressing against her back while he applied pressure from the front. Rock. Hard place. Maybe being stuck was not so bad.

She moaned the word this time. "Yes." Maybe she was affirming his statement. Maybe she was speaking to the best part of him that had just hit the best part of her. Sookie buried her face in his chest, tried to take in more of his winter, filling her head with his scent and cooling her burning cheeks. This time she rocked against him, her mouth tasting the word as her lips tasted his skin. Inevitable.

The hand on her back was suddenly replaced by the full length of his office door. Cool metal, colder than he was, and she gasped and arched away from it. Arched right into his full length, giving strength to her vocal chords. The smooth skin of his chest caught her muffled cry, his hand caught the gap in her short shorts. Two inch inseam. Sookie found herself composing a quick letter to Heaven. Dear Gran, as it turned out the shorts weren't indecent. It's the unfettered access they give to someone who's hand is big enough to palm a basketball. See you soon.

Because he was sending her to heaven. And all she could do was wrap her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, and use that word as a mantra while he took her there.

Inevitable.

In.

Yes. He was definitely in.

Evi.

That didn't make any sense, but neither did the fact that when she kissed the skin over his shriveled and mostly unfeeling heart she could taste the salt of the ocean on her tongue.

Table.

Table. She wanted him to fuck her on the table in her kitchen, any table in Merlotte's, the unused dining table in Bill's house while Bill watched and cried and turned to Wii Golf for consolation. He could bend her over and fuck her on Queen Elizabeth II's tea-time table while the Queen and Prince Harry reached around her for their scones and cucumber sandwiches, she didn't care.

She felt him kiss the top of her head, tenderly, while he moaned her name into her hair. It brought her back down immediately. She was mentally debauching him in front of the Queen while he was treating her with gentleness. She was a terrible person. A terrible person who had so many good, good feelings flowing through her.

A flick of his wrist and a thrust of his hips erased her guilt and immediately replaced it with pleasure. Oh, his mouth was sweet, but down south he was all kinds of wicked. Dichotomy. The word flashed in her brain, replacing inevitable in the list of Vocabulary Words Sookie Uses during Professor Northman's Dry Humping 101.

Another thrust, and sparks shot through her. She instinctively tilted her head back and arched her throat. Sookie waited for the inevitable-because it really, truly was inevitable- feel of his fangs inside her.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, she gave up, willing her eyes to lift their pleasure-heavy lids to find out what the deal was.

It was a mistake.

The aftershocks that fluttered through her were nothing compared to the wild panicked rhythm her heart took up. There was no arrogance in his face. A rare sight, but she had seen it before. There was no hurt, which again, while rare she had also seen. This was the look her Gran had gotten in Church. The way Jason stared at a found copy of Playboy when he was ten. Reverence. Awe. Wonder.

For her. For Sookie Stackhouse, backwoods small town high school graduate/waitress/telepath.

It was a mistake.

She caught his eyes, and they were so bright it almost hurt to look into them. They were too blue for the sea he tasted of, deep Pacific Island waters when it should be stormy gray. Although the storm was there. If she looked close enough she could see the tempest. She couldn't help herself, she knew she shouldn't open her mouth and say anything, but the depth of his eyes scared her.

"I can taste the sea in you."

It worked. His hand stilled, though his hips continued to rock a little more slowly. Maybe some waters were never calm. His other hand cupped her face as he leaned closer.

"Tell me, Sookie. Which sea?" he asked in his Professor Northman voice, as if his fingers weren't currently being warmed by her heat, and closed his eyes. Something told her to do the same, and after a second Sookie could see gray waters, whitecaps, a wooden boat with some sort of animal or creature carved at the front. All of this in a heartbeat, then gone. But a word remained. Maybe she did hear it. Or maybe she pieced it together from common sense and a few years of watching the History Channel.

"North."

When he opened his eyes again the awe was still there. And maybe, although she was a terrible judge of such things as proven before with Bill, love. Inevitable, all right. And inevitably, she would be hurt again, because there was no way Eric Northman could find a shiny new toy all that shiny or new for all that long.

He smiled at her, just the edge of his mouth turning up, but it was one of the most genuine things she had seen from him. Her inner mantra switched over to mistake.

"I guess it is fitting then, that I can taste the sun in you." He ran a finger lightly down her nose and over her lips, causing her to forget that m-word and want nothing more than to feel him against her. His finger skimmed over her chin and down her throat, into the dip of her collarbone before fisting in her hair. She obliged, tilting her head and wondering if his second taste of her would feel better than his first.

She really was a backwoods idiot, she thought, as his teeth pierced her skin. It was better in the way that Gran's fried chicken was better than KFC. Better in the way that lemons and sugar together always bested packets of Country Time. Of course it was better. It was the vampire equivalent of a home cooked meal. It was more than food, it was nourishment with love and caring and the fact that it was Eric Fucking Northman with those feelings was as weird as the time Jason bought some porn mag for some cute Asian girl on the cover who turned out to be a ladyboy on the inside pictures. God, sometimes she hated being a telepath.

And sometimes she really hated Eric Northman. As he drank harder, his thrusts more frenzied, she tried to focus on how much she hated him instead of the second orgasm she could feel hovering just around the corner.

Her failure was inevitable. She came hard, letting his hand work its magic while cursing her shorts for not doing enough to protect her. She felt him take one long, hard draught before shuddering, and felt more than heard him whisper her name onto her neck. The pressure against her center eased, but not entirely. Yes, she was positive Eric had another round or twelve left in him.

For the first time in her life, she wished she were a fangbanger. He would have dropped her, and told her to get up and leave while she lay in a quivering mass on the ground. He would not have used the hand still in her hair to keep her head steady while he kissed the ever loving daylights out of her.

He was melting her resolve, one little piece at a time. Sookie thought of her childhood, when she and Gran would put a bag of chocolate chips over a double boiler and wait for them to melt. Chip after chip, giving up their little chip shapes and slowly becoming a warm, delicious pot of chocolate.

That had always turned out well. So maybe, this thing with Eric wouldn't be too bad. It would be like dunking a strawberry in that chocolate. Sinfully delicious, but also kind of good for her. She smiled at the thought.

Eric smirked at her smile and kissed the upturned corner of her mouth.

"I knew you would see it my way. Im always right. It was inevitable."

As it turned out, some strawberries have mold inside. And nothing could set her off like his damn moldy arrogance. She untangled her legs and pushed him away. "Never," she hissed out, while trying to find her purse so she could get the hell out of his office before her body betrayed her again.

He leaned against the door, casually blocking her escape. "That is an awfully adamant statement from someone whose pleasure I can still taste on my fingers." As if to prove his point, he began licking them. It reminded Sookie of a cat cleaning himself. An insufferably haughty cat.

"Well enjoy that, Mr. Northman, because it will be forever before you get any more."

He finished licking himself and crossed his arms. Now he was a bemused cat. "Forever is an awfully long time." He spoke slowly though kindly, as if talking to children. Professor Northman's Magic School Bus.

Sookie found her purse and slung it over her shoulder. "Not long enough." She stomped over to the door he was blocking. "Now move." Then, because it was ingrained in her, "Please."

He moved.

An inch.

Most of the door was still blocked. "Forever is not all that long when you are a vampire."

Insufferable bastard. "Fine! Forever and a day!"

"And after that length of time you will let me have you? You will let me feel what it is like to slide myself inside you and have you whimper and ride me while you cry out my name?"

Sookie rolled her eyes. She'd be dust and bones by the time that rolled around. "Sure. Fine. Whatever."

The smile Eric gave her was bittersweet, and confused her to say the least. "Then Im even more grateful to Godric, that he has given me forever."

He had played her Achilles' heel. That no good son of a troll bastard. She told her heart to cowboy up. "Well, you must be getting deaf in your vampire old age, because I said forever and a day."

He grinned at her. "For you, my Sookie, I have patience. I can wait. And trust me, it will be you who gives in first." He leaned down and kissed her so gently that if she hadn't been standing dumbstruck with her eyes open and seen it for herself, she wouldn't have believed it. "I have all the time in the world." He kissed her again, just as lightly, and let his lips brush hers as he finished, "and it is only a matter of time." One final brush of her lips, a sweep of his tongue against them before he walked away from the door and dropped himself casually on his office couch, propping his legs up and giving her a good view of her effect on him. "It is-"

"Inevitable," Sookie finished for him, complete with an eye roll. She licked her lips, and felt an electric, coppery thrill race over her tongue. The drop of his blood was in her bloodstream before she could place what it was. Her own blood became a magma flow. "You smug bastard son of a bitch asshole!"

She was too angry for curses that made sense.

He merely smiled at her and stuck out his tongue, letting her watch the little nick he had made heal up.

"Oh, Fuck you, Eric Northman!"

His eyes on her body were predatory. Hungry, starving, and predatory. "Yes. You will. In Forever, however long that might be."

Sookie kicked him in the shin and flounced out of the room, then came back to stick her head through the door. "And a DAY!" she screamed, before slamming the door and storming out for good.

Or maybe just forever.

And a day.

-end-

Thanks for reading! Astute readers will realize that Sookie came nowhere close to getting her roof fixed