A/N: This piece was written for the Weekly One-Shot Challenge (#2). Theme: "Gravedigger, when you dig my grave, could you make it shallow so that I can feel the rain?"

Hunger

I could hear him above me, his lungs not breathing, his heart not beating, his skin crackling with tension. Every part of me ached to be near him. Every nerve popped and snapped, like embers on the glowing fire. The dirt and mud crumbled around me, soaking into my hair and clothes and flesh. Nothing hurt, though I had expected every fiber of my being to ache and burn. Hadn't I been bleeding to death in a parking lot? Surely it could not have been a dream.

It didn't matter. I stretched my fingers until I felt the heavy rain, cold on my smoldering palm. I wriggled my way to the surface, clawing through the sopping earth. I glanced to my right to find Gran lying peacefully beside me, a bouquet of fresh white roses tilted against her headstone. It occurred to me that she would have loved them, but I couldn't remember leaving them there myself. When had I last visited her? When had we had our last heart to heart?

"Eric," I muttered in a voice whisper-soft, guttural, and rough.

"My lover," he replied. I lifted my face from the gravestone of my grandmother and gazed upon the Viking. Had he ever looked so succulent? His blue eyes blazed like fragments of the Hope diamond. His wheat gold hair provided a perfect frame for his glowing alabaster skin. A soaking wet black tee shirt clung to his torso, giving the musculature a heavenly silhouette. The black jeans he wore hugged his hips and thighs, and I imagine it gave perfect complimentary shape to his glorious backside. There were pale purple shadows under his eyes, and I knew that he hadn't been sleeping.

I moved closer to him, and he took my hand in his. My eyes fell to watch him, the way his fingers closed around mine, enveloped mine. I raised my arm, pressed his hand to my cheek, and nuzzled against it. There was desperation in me, a need that I couldn't suppress had I wanted to do so. He enraptured me, enslaved me, and for once, my independent spirit didn't reject him. I moaned when the coarse but smooth flesh of his palm grazed against my damp face. The sound welled up in me. It poured over my parted lips, hot cream from the milk jug. I stretched my fingers over his chest, caressing the place where his dead heart lay.

He radiated warmth, like a man on fire. It consumed us both, and I had to be closer to the source.

"Eric," I groaned, tracing the damp line of his abdomen, tugging the wet tee shirt loose from his belt. Flutters of anxiousness snagged in my gut. An enormous hunger emptied me of everything but desire. I wanted to be inside his veins, to find the source of the heat. I ached to have him inside of me.

"Sookie," he murmured; his voice almost tragic in its tone. He was stiff for a moment, as though he was unsure of the proper reaction. His eyes twitched as he contemplated me, thoughts rolling through his brain at a mile a minute. I unbuckled his belt and tossed it on the flooded graveyard path. My obsessive fingers tore at his shirt like an animal in heat, and to my surprise, the material came apart easily. His large, heavy hands found my shoulders and folded over them. I stretched up on my tiptoes between his arms to kiss his lips, to lick his throat, to suck on his fiery pale flesh.

"Lover," he whispered again. His voice was now a tremor of lust. "We need to talk."

"Eric," I growled, pushing an eager hand down his pants. "Fuck me."

The hunger starved me. I couldn't think straight, but every single thought I did have led me to the same feverish conclusion. I had to have him, and it had to be now. We couldn't wait and we couldn't talk and we couldn't reason our way out. It had to be hard and rough and dirty and impatient. He didn't give me long to dwell on the method of our love-making.

Eric grabbed me around the waist and threw me up against the trunk of an old live oak, the branches shielding us from the virulent storm. I heard a clap of thunder overhead, and the sound thrilled me. Against my spine, the old bark crunched and fell away. Pinned between the tree and my Viking, I gasped, yearning for fulfillment. He was inside me slowly and quickly. I could see the speed of his movements, like a frame-by-frame film projection.

He was sensuous but forceful, his mouth suckling my breast while he thrust heavily, jolting his hips against mine. He was under my skin and in my head. I could feel his passion, as vicious and intense as my own. His love mingled with a great and powerful sadness, and that depression yanked at my soul. The depths of it gave me pangs of heartache, and I could not stem the tide of my tears. They burned my eyes, as though I'd been stabbed with needles. The orgasm hit me at the same moment that I wept, and pleasure and pain rolled through me like conflicting tides. I was a battleground for emotion, and I had no control. Beneath it all, the hunger could not be sated.

I dug my fingers into his hair and pulled, dragging his eyes to mine. They had darkened to hard stones of the deepest onyx, like the void at the bottom of the sea. His mind was a diary left open on the nightstand, and I reached into him with ease, as if it was something I had always done. He shoved his hips harder and held me against the tree trunk so that his hands were free to cup my cheeks.

I had no choice.